Judgement Day
by Herr Wozzeck
Summary: A simple experiment goes horribly wrong, leaving a handful of survivors to fend for themselves amidst the remains of a once prosperous Station Square and a mass of undead creatures. AU, Zombie fic, Character death.
1. Prologue

Judgment Day

Prologue

Death…

Everybody considers it to be a one-way portal to the unknown. Some believe that a white light is all that remains before the deceased feels nothing for eternity. Some believe there to be a heaven and a hell and even a purgatory in which the dead would rest. Some believe that the soul leaves the body and travels into the being of something else depending on the good or bad deeds of the spirit's old body.

However, all believe one thing; sooner or later, people will die.

It is a natural part of the cycle of life, after all.

However, some have reportedly defied the cycle. Much disarray has never been encountered by the return of these said few. Thus, some people reason that there must be a way to reverse death.

A solution should be available to reverse death for everybody; not deities, not demigods, normal, living, everyday people. That is, that is how many people feel.

The question is, would they if they found out the price for doing so was high?


	2. Chapter 1

Hello, children. Gosh, I keep getting ideas for things, don't I? 

Anyways, there's not much for me to say, so I'll just get on with it by giving out the disclaimer: 

The trademark used here does not belong to me. Sonic the Hedgehog and everybody he knows belong to the guys at Sega and Sonic Team. The scenario is not completely mine (see details below), and anybody you don't recognize belongs to me. 

Now, before I go further, this fic was inspired by a Sonic fanart (SegaSonic Zombies) by a guy by the name of Tigerfog. The scenario and the roster of main characters in the fic is based off of the fanart, and it came before this. Tigerfog is also aware of what I am doing, and even encourages artistic liberty. Therefore, no complaining. 

With that out of the way, let's start the fic, shall we?

* * *

Chapter 1

**Saturday, July 10**

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

The constant tapping on a keyboard was filling up the apartment like nothing else. The keyboard in question produced row upon row of programming language which only a few minds could decipher.

Miles Prower- better known as 'Tails' by his friends because of his two tails- was busy typing up yet another program as part of an upgrade for a corporate company. He was only twelve years old, but he had already achieved an expertise in programming languages such that he had already attained a job with a computer company that was situated around ten minutes from his rather small apartment.

He typed the endless rows of ones and zeros as his tails swished around in a natural pattern, pointed ears subconsciously alert as he typed away. The fox had been working under a tight deadline, and the sheets that told him what the upgrade material was about lay in a mess on the table.

His ears picked up something, but he sighed comfortably when he noticed his mother walk in with a plate and a glass of water.

"Here's the snack, dear," said his mother, laying the plate next to the keyboard.

"Thanks, mom," said Tails.

"You know, are you sure this programming is healthy for you?" asked his mother. "I mean, you have been here for a while today when you could be easily doing things with your friends. I mean, wouldn't it be nice to have something to do on a Saturday?"

"The upgrade is due on Monday, mom," said Tails. "I've made a bit of progress, but if I don't get this project in by then I might lose my job. It's a really important update."

"Still, it's not healthy for you to sit in front of a computer writing programming languages all day," said his mother. "I think we could do with a game of Scrabble every now and then, yes?"

Tails sighed and turned to his mother.

"Mom!" he bawled. "I really need to get the project done!"

"Okay, okay," said the adult fox. "But don't forget to eat your snack and stand up to stretch sometime today."

"Okay," said Tails, somewhat uninterested as his fingers returned to the typewriter.

The clacking of keys continued for quite a while.

* * *

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Cody always imagined this to be the sound of the feet of the employees walking across an incredibly fancy lobby. Unfortunately for him, he would never be able to find out for sure.

Cody was a dog with white curly fur all over him that was unadulterated by any markings of any sort. For the dog, the chance to hear was something that he would give anything for, as he had been deaf since infancy.

Somehow, he had gotten a job as a security guard at the Zodiac Chemical and Medication Company headquarters, where his job was to watch the lobby to check for any suspicious activity along with a team of other security guards. Usually such suspicious activity only occurred about twice a month, and the suspicions were usually unfounded, but it paid well and that was all that mattered.

Besides, there was something about staring at the lobby that made the dog like the job all the more. The lobby was a rather beautiful place; if a person looked up, they would see many glass elevators leading to all of the floors in the building. On the tile immediately in front of him a globe was seen imprinted into the tile, decorated with gold and various gemstones such that it shone brilliantly such that lighting was not needed in the lobby until sunset.

The dog kept a faithful watch; he was unable to hear, but because of that he made a vital asset to the security team; he was able to see things from a farther distance than most people would be able to.

He had been standing there when suddenly a small lithe form wearing a black jumpsuit with a pink heart on top of it. The female form slowly edged his way to Cody as the dog smiled a little.

"Hey, Rouge," said Cody as the form approached to reveal a bat.

Rouge mouthed some things that Cody could not hear.

"I'm sorry?" asked Cody.

Rouge put her hand up to her lips and smiled embarrassedly. Even after having known each other for close to a year, Rouge still forgot that she needed to sign everything she said.

"No, no, it's okay," said Cody. "I know that slip-ups occur in everything."

_"How are you?"_ she signed.

"I'm great," said Cody. "How are you?"

_"I'm feeling less than stellar right now,"_ she signed.

"Really?" asked Cody. "How so?"

_"I woke up this morning with a really bad headache," _signed Rouge. "_I'm getting better, though. Damn migraines."_

Cody chuckled a little.

"I know," said Cody. "Too bad massages don't work that well…"

He said this, glaring to the side a little. Rouge nodded in agreement.

_"You're still open for tonight, yes?"_ asked Rouge, still signing.

"Of course," said Cody. "Remember I follow your schedule and not mine."

Rouge nodded, pointed at the heart on her jumpsuit, and then pointed at Cody.

"I love you too, Rouge," said Cody. "And I'll see you tonight."

The bat nodded politely, then proceeded to the elevators in a dainty fashion.

Rouge was a wonderful woman; this much was for certain. The two of them met by accidentwhen Cody had literally bumped into her and accidentally sprained her ankle, and after Cody saw her through the medical stuff that followed they started noticing each other. Eventually, it got to the point where Cody had asked Rouge out. After that, they were set for each other.

Cody smiled contentedly as he resumed his watch on the lobby, black eyes skimming every surface in the room to make sure nothing was missed.

* * *

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

"Mom, how long will I stay here?"

"I don't know, sweetie. Until daddy calms down, you can't be back there."

"How long do you think it will take him to calm down?"

"Again, I don't know. Just trust me about this and let me take you to places, okay dear?"

A nod followed the question.

Vanilla the rabbit sighed.

Being a mother really was as hard as people said, especially with a father as abusive as her husband was.

Cream was being transferred to a house in Station Square that would be far away from her father. Vanilla would return back to her home to be close to her husband to monitor him, but personally, she did not care. She knew Mighty to be a fairly protective person, and she knew that while her husband was in rehab for marijuana she would not rest until she knew her twelve-year-old daughter was out of harm's way.

They had just stepped out of the taxi cab that had delivered Cream to her home for however long her father would be in rehab, Vanilla going to the trunk to get Cream's things.

She had finished taking out a chao-themed suitcase with all of Cream's things inside when an armadillo with a red shell appeared out of the apartment.

"Mighty!" said Vanilla. "There you are!"

"How are you doing, Vanilla?" asked Mighty as Vanilla came up. This gave the armadillo the time to give a quick welcoming kiss.

"I found out my husband was on weed," said Vanilla. "I made the arrangements as soon as he was in rehab. Thank you so much for doing this on such short notice."

"It's all right, Vanilla," said Mighty. "Remember, we did do that pinkie swear back in college to help each other in times of need no matter what. This would be another item on the paycheck."

"Are you sure you can accommodate one extra person, though?" asked Vanilla.

"Of course," said Mighty. "Anything for my good friends must be done."

"Mom," said Cream as she walked up to Vanilla's legs.

"Oh, excuse me," said Vanilla to Might. "What is it dear?"

The question was directed to Cream.

"Why can't we bring Cheese over here?"

"Well, he would be hard to carry," said Vanilla. "Now Cream, please try not to think of Cheese so much. I will take good care of him while you're gone."

The girl nodded and stood by Mighty.

"So I'll tell you when he's out of rehab," said Vanilla to the armadillo. "Oh, and make sure to call me as often as possible to let me know how she's doing. Cream, I'm going to go now. You be good with Mighty, okay?"

"Okay," said Cream as she hugged her mother by the waist. "Goodbye!"

"Bye!" said Vanilla. She stepped back into the taxi and it drove away to the mid-day rush at the airport.

Might and Cream stood there for a while. Then, Might took Cream's hand gently.

"Come on," said Mighty. "I'll have to get you to your new home for however long your dad needs to calm down."

Cream nodded and let Mighty lead the young rabbit into the apartment complex he called home.

Once they had stepped into the elevator taking the two of them to Mighty's floor, the armadillo looked at Cream.

"So is there anything you want to eat once we get home?" asked Mighty.

"I want a grilled cheese sandwich," said Cream.

"All right," said Mighty. "Grilled cheese it is!"

The elevator stopped at the floor Mighty's apartment rested on a short while afterwards, and they got off and walked to the left down the corridor, stopping after going four doors down on either side. He stopped at the fifth door to the left.

Mighty opened the door, motioning Cream into the apartment with a wave of his hand. The rabbit went in, and Mighty walked in after her, closing the door behind him as he did.

Cream was greeted by a not-too shabby-looking apartment. To her it felt a little small, but it was nothing that she could not play in. Besides, she did know that it was not a house, so she felt she could not say anything mean about it. After all, the furniture did look nice; it was mostly that there were random papers lying all over the place.

Cream stood for a few seconds looking at the apartment while Mighty went to the kitchen and pulled some bread and a few slices of American cheese from the refrigerator.

"What are all these papers on the floor?" asked Cream.

"Oh, I'm not so sure anymore," said Mighty. "Rough drafts, blank sheets, sketches, I don't know anymore."

"Well then, I guess we'll have to get these papers thrown away," said Cream.

Immediately, Cream began to pick up papers, inserting them into a blue bin that lay close to the couch that was full of other things.

Mighty did not object to this; after all, he knew that he had really needed to clean that up. The only problem was that with his job and the fact that he could not think of a new plot for a story he never had time to. Thankfully, Cream decided to help, and Mighty was all the more thankful as he closed the bread onto the cheese slices.

"So, where do I sleep?" asked Cream as she cleaned.

"Hm…" said Mighty. "Are you alright with the couch?"

Cream promptly stopped what she was doing and plopped on the couch, laying on it for a few minutes to see how it was as Mighty put the sandwich in the microwave.

"It's okay with me," said Cream.

"Okay, great!" said Mighty. "Now we need to get sheets for you and we are all good to go!"

Cream smiled as she jumped off of the couch and continued cleaning.

"You know, mom always says that great friends help each other in times of need," said Cream. "Are you and mom great friends?"

"Have been since college," said Mighty.

"Really?" asked Cream.

"Yes," said Mighty as the microwave beeped, signaling that the sandwich was done. "In fact, I know plenty of people from college."

"So adults have friends, too?" asked Cream. "I've always wondered about that."

"Well, everybody has friends," said Mighty. "And friends always stay with each other no matter what happens."

"Would you stay with me if something happened to me?" asked Cream.

"It's part of the job description," said Mighty as he removed the sandwich and placed it on the counter. "Careful. It's hot."

"Great!" said Cream. "I think we would make great friends."

She said this as she sat on the counter.

"I think so too," said Mighty. "Enjoy the sandwich!"

Cream picked up the sandwich and began to eat.

* * *

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

A shuffle sounded shortly afterwards.

The items that were being shuffled were a set of twenty dollar bills that a certain Wave the Swallow was sorting out amidst a mass of money that she had pilfered that day.

Living on the streets was something that the young lavender-colored swallow was hoping she would never do, and yet there she was, stealing people's purses just so she could get something to eat. She had joined one of the most prominent theft groups on the streets; Wave was part of a group known as the Babylon Rogues, who were quite infamous in the city, both within gang circles and for the authorities. The public never really did know about certain gangs until they found themselves having to sleep on cardboard and hard pavement with only an overhang to shield them from the rain. Then, they ended up joining a gang or two.

On the opposite side of the table she sat at, a large albatross sat doing the exact same thing that Wave was. The albatross, who was known as Storm by the other rogues, was also counting money with Wave. They sat in silence, as was usual when they were counting money.

Outside of counting, though, Wave and Storm were inseparable. They often talked to each other about their pasts and their friends from their old life, and most would have said that they were in love with each other. They never openly admitted such a thing, but they still liked to talk with each other quite a bit. Wave was given to criticizing Storm whenever a theft attempt failed and he was forced to flee, but otherwise they were good friends.

The two of them finished, and then they looked at each other.

"So we wait for Jet?" asked Wave.

"We wait for Jet," said Storm, laying his bills on the table.

And so, they waited, the cloth above their heads making sure the evening sunset was not to glaring. Their lair lay in an alley way, and after they had stolen some furniture from a raid at a nearby house, they had managed to get a table and two mattresses for them. They always stood at the table, but that did not matter as they had a comfortable place to stay in.

Thus, they were okay.

From the other end of the alley where the lair was, a hawk with jade feathers was seen walking towards them. His emerald eyes had failed to shine with the light; years of life on the streets had hardened him, and his innocence was no more.

"So, how much money did we get today?" asked Jet as he approached the table.

"Well, I got lucky today," said Wave. "I managed to get into the wallet of what looked like a CEO, and I found around forty three dollars and six cents from that wallet alone. Combined with the other wallets, I'd say I got around sixty-three dollars and thirty-five cents today."

"Great!" said Jet. "Storm?"

"Well, I wasn't as lucky as Wave over here," said Storm.

"Another failed attempt?" asked Jet.

Storm nodded, glad that his feathers were able to hide a blush from the most piercing eye.

"Really, Storm, you ought to be more careful," said Wave. "I'm surprised you haven't managed to get spotted by authorities yet."

"Well, my h-hands are big!" said Storm defensively. "What do you expect? I t-t-try hard to d-do it, and yet my hands g-g-g-get in the way!"

"Okay, okay!" said Jet, raising his hands up as he did. "Chill!"

"Aside from that, I managed to get twelve dollars. I haven't counted the change yet."

"Twelve dollars," said Jet. "Well, that certainly isn't bad. I think we've made quite a bit today."

"Too bad we can't exactly celebrate given our status in the modern-day world," said Wave.

"You never know," said Jet. "Me? I might stop by the gay bar tonight."

"Why?" asked Wave. "You never were one for one-night stands. Also, heaven forbid if they do a police raid while you're there."

"Well, I do like to chat a little with people that share traits of mine," said Jet. "Aside from that, we do have a sit-down with some guys on Wednesday, okay?"

"Yeah," said Storm. "I'm gonna go get some Chinese now. I'll see you guys later."

The albatross left the lair, and Jet and Wave followed him out with their eyes. When Storm was out of sight, the hawk turned to face the swallow.

"Well, I think I'm gonna go to town now," said Wave. "See you later."

Jet waved his hand as Wave left. He then sat on the mattress that he slept on most of the time and leaned against the wall of the building, watching as the light dissipated.

He pulled something small from under the mattress and stared at it as it glittered in the twilight.

It was an ankh he had found in an elderly woman's change pouch when he had gone on a theft run two months ago. He had no idea what it was supposed to do, but keeping it with him always seemed to be good luck whenever the Babylon Rogues had to go to sit-downs and various other functions. He would have to ask somebody with more knowledge of signs than he did what it was, but he always slipped it into his glove whenever going to something that would require him to live through it to see the end.

Thus, after admiring it for a little while, Jet slipped the ankh into his glove and left the lair in silence.

* * *

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Shadow's footsteps sounded much louder than usual on the floor of the funeral home as he walked in, black and red fur shining in the lighting as he walked in. His white mane was not shining very brilliantly, but it stood majestically on his chest nonetheless.

As he walked in, he took notice where his destination was as it was printed on a board. He walked to room H10 to see people he knew through various connections.

As he neared it, a young orange echidna with tribal tattoos and black tribal clothing looked up at him, and walked to him.

"Shadow, you made it!" said the young echidna.

The black hedgehog walked up to the young girl and gave her a hug in greeting.

"My boss gave me funeral leave, Tikal," said Shadow as he broke the hug. "He recognized I needed time to mourn him. Has the service started yet?"

"No," said Tikal.

"Good," said Shadow. "I was afraid of getting here after it."

"Poor man," said Tikal. "It's so hard to believe that such a great person would be killed by something that he had no ability to control. I still can't get over the shock of it happening. I can't imagine how bad you are feeling right now."

"I have many storms in my head," said Shadow. "There are so many things that could have been done differently. Why didn't the insurance company cover anything that could have saved him?"

Shadow shook his head. The subject was very touchy for the poor hedgehog.

Shadow had met his lover, Knuckles, two years ago when the hedgehog was fresh out of earning his Bachelor's in chemical engineering, after literally bumping into him at a graduation party a friend of his was hosting. Knuckles was suffering the effects of AIDS during the time that Shadow knew him, and the poor echidna was unable to afford the cure and his insurance company, and nobody was around him for fear of getting in bed with him and winding up with HIV. However, Shadow approached him without fear, and they had been living in Knuckles' apartment for the last two years of the echidna's life since then. The fact that Knuckles was ill with a disease that could get in the way of most relationships did not bother Shadow at all, and he expected the day Knuckles would stop breathing in a hospital bed.

However, it was the impact Shadow had made on the echidna's life that made Shadow so mentally fried at the funeral. Knuckles made it clear that he loved Shadow, but a year into their relationship when Shadow had asked why the echidna considered the hedgehog to be such an integral part of his life, the echidna responded that the fact that Shadow lived with him meant that he knew that he was not alone. Thus, Shadow stayed with him to the bitter end.

"They could have," said Tikal. "You know how insurance companies are these days, though."

"Yeah," said Shadow as the two of them entered room H10. "Greedy bastards…"

"I think I should give you some time alone," said Tikal. "With Knuckles."

"Of course," said Shadow. "Thank you."

Tikal nodded and stood by one of the chairs as Shadow walked to the casket that lay in the front of the room. He knelt down and beheld the black casket in front of him. Shadow figured that it would be closed casket; the lesions that had formed on the echidna's now emaciated body would have been too disturbing for most of the people at the funeral to look at.

However, Shadow had been wide awake the moment Knuckles flat-lined in the hospital, and he could imagine what he looked like underneath the cover of the casket with his favorite watch and everything scattered about with him. The image alone was hard for Shadow to bear; the fact that Knuckles would never be there for him again in his times of need was too much.

Thus, he knelt in front of Knuckles for an unusually long time, hoping to clear his head with it. He also shed a few silent tears, which was not very normal of the hedgehog who normally kept his head clear of emotion.

Finally, he felt that the service was about to start, and so he decided it would be best for him to find a seat.

His hand trailed on the casket as he stood, reluctantly departing as he walked away.


	3. Chapter 2

I finished this chapter quickly, I must say. God, I have so many ideas for this one it's unbearable.

I can't say a whole lot without sounding redundant, and besides I have nothing much to say other than the fact that school starts on Monday and that I won't update as frequently once it's in session.

That said, enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 2

**Monday, July 12**

A black sedan approached the Zodiac Chemical and Medication Company headquarters, and Tails stepped out with a blue hedgehog.

"Thanks, Sonic!" said Tails. "You don't know how much I appreciate it!"

"Hey, don't sweat it!" said Sonic as he closed the door for his sedan. "You know I like to help my lil' bro out, right?"

"Yeah," said Tails as Sonic walked next to the fox and walked into the building. "So how's your summer?"

"It's not bad," said Sonic. "I just wish that there were more open spaces for me to run in. I mean, you get tired of sitting around in small spaces waiting for action, you know?"

"Yeah," said Tails as they neared the clerk's desk and waited in line. "Have you started reading that _Arabian Nights_ volume I gave you?"

"I'm at the start of the 171st night," said Sonic.

"The tale of Kamar al-Zaman, right?" asked Tails. "Oh dear. That's one of the longest tales that Scheherazade tells. It keeps going until the 249th night. And unfortunately, you're nowhere near the voyages of Sinbad yet."

"Why are the voyages of Sinbad such a big deal?" asked Sonic. "All the stories are very good, if ya know what I mean."

"Well, they're some of the best tales in the book," said Tails.

"I see…" said Sonic. "But along with my summer reading, I can't exactly keep track of how my progress is. I might get to the last night during the school year."

"That's okay," said Tails. "At least you're reading what I gave you."

"Hey," said Sonic. "It's the least I can do to show appreciation for the fact that you're my lil' bro!"

The hedgehog gave the fox a short little noogie before being called up next by the clerk standing behind the desk

Tails toyed with a compact disc case as he walked up to the desk.

"Good morning," said the clerk. "May I help you two lads?"

"Hi," said Tails. "I needed to turn in a security upgrade today."

"Oh," said the clerk. "Hold on for one second."

The clerk went to her computer, typed a few things, then returned to the desk.

"Miles Prower, yes?" asked the clerk.

"Yes, ma'am!" said Tails.

"Alright," said the clerk. "This time, you need to go up to security services up in the second floor. It's suite 204, which should be two doors on the left from exiting the elevators."

"All right," said Tails. "Thank you!"

The clerk nodded as Tails and Sonic left the line. The two of them walked to the elevators and pushed the up button.

"You know, I wonder what these guys do at this place," said Sonic. "It always seems like there are way too many people here."

"Well, the Zodiac organization is the largest chemical and medication company in the world," said Tails. "After all, they do market the cure for HIV/AIDS and a bunch of other viral diseases."

"True," said Sonic. "Still, though, who is on all of those other floors?"

"They consist mostly of accountants, a bunch of chemical engineers, and God knows what else is there," said Tails. "Nobody's allowed on the top three floors, you see."

"I see," said Sonic as the elevator arrived. "So what are they doing up there?"

"That's anybody's guess," said Tails as he stepped into the elevator. "My guess is that the top floor is a series of apartments for the CEO and his most trusted employees, but I don't think there are enough of those."

"Yeah," said Sonic. "Cause you'd be living the high life up there with everybody else."

The elevator stopped on the second floor, and Sonic and Tails managed to get out of the somewhat-crowded elevator.

"Well, I wouldn't have gone anyway," said Tails. "You know about my fear of heights."

"Yeah," said Sonic as they stopped by the suite where Tails was supposed to drop his security update.

"Well, here we are," said Tails as he rapped on the door with his knuckles.

After a short interval of waiting, the door opened and a middle-aged rat greeted them.

"Well?" asked the rat.

"I'm supposed to be turning in a security update today," said Tails.

"Miles Prower, correct?" asked the rat.

"Yes," said Tails. "Here's the update."

He held the CD in front of him.

"Thank you," said the rat as he took the disc. "Anything else you would like me to do for you?"

"No," said Tails.

"Well then," said the rat. "I guess you two ought to run along now."

Tails nodded and turned to leave, Sonic following shortly after as the doors close.

"Wow, these guys sure aren't friendly," said Sonic.

"Yeah," said Tails. "I get looks like that from all of the staff."

"So they think that just because you're twelve years old and don't have a degree in computer sciences means they can do that to you?" asked Sonic.

"They do it to anybody they don't like, though," said Tails. "It's nothing that can make you quit your job, though."

"Right…" said Sonic as he pressed the down button at the elevators.

"I can't thank you enough for doing this," said Tails. "With mom at work and stuff, I wasn't sure what to do."

"Well, whenever anything else pops up, you say the word and I'm there!" said Sonic. "So, have you thought about where you wanted to go to lunch?"

"Yeah," said Tails as the elevator doors opened and they walked in. "How about Deli Street?"

"Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me," said Sonic. "Deli Street it is!"

The hedgehog winked at the fox as the elevator doors opened and everybody emptied the elevator.

* * *

Rouge sat in her cubicle as inconspicuously as possible after having just managed to escape the top floor. God, she wished she had just stayed back in the capitol. 

She sat back in her desk and quickly got to the touch typing she was supposed to have been doing. When the clacking of keys from her cubicle had ceased to exist, she picked up her cell phone, dialed a number, and brought it up to her ears.

After a short dial tone, the bat girl heard the sound of a phone being picked up.

"Hello?" asked the operator on the other side of the line.

"Hello," said Rouge. "Rouge here. You know what to do."

"Right," said the operator.

There was a short burst of upbeat Mozart as she was put on hold. The bat wished that her government agency had something less upbeat, but she knew that being a covert operation was not easy. Therefore, they had to hide the fact that they were a government agency with cheery music and an operator.

It was at times like this that Rouge did not like her government job. Other times she did not like her job involved cases where she had no choice but to tell about her covert operation. When she had started dating Cody, for instance, he was out of the blue as to her government operation, and Rouge was not sure whether she should have told him or not. Finally, after consulting with a fellow agent for advice, she went ahead with telling him since nobody at the company was able to read sign language. He was shocked at first, but he agreed to keep Rouge's secret, and so far he had been very reliable in hiding it. Life had gone on afterwards, but Rouge had not liked her job for a few days for making her love life difficult.

Finally, though, the upbeat music ended.

"Hello?" asked somebody on the other line.

"Hello, sir," said Rouge. "Agent Rouge reporting. I have some vital information on my subject right now."

"Dr. Ivo Robotnick, yes?" asked the man on the other line.

"Yes," said Rouge. "I just snuck into the forbidden floors, and I think I have some idea of what he's up to. When I walked in, I saw this laboratory that took up the top three floors that was full of large cylindrical containers and random bodies all over the place. They must have been killed a while ago, since they were all horribly disfigured or otherwise had no traces of blood or pulse. One of them was Agent Blaze."

"Well, that explains where she went," said the man on the other line. "Did you see anything else?"

"I managed to read through the contents of a folder from the files before hearing things that might get me spotted," said Rouge. "It says stuff about curing death or something…"

"By Jove, the man is mad!" said the man on the other line. "How does he plan on doing that?"

"That's a damn good question," said Rouge. "I was unable to read the rest of it since I heard footsteps coming in my direction. I left shortly afterwards. Thank the lord that my office is on the fourth floor closest to the top."

"Indeed," said the agent. "I will ask you to keep on looking in there until you can get a lead on what his intentions are."

"And what do I do then?" asked Rouge.

"Report back to me so I can decide on a course of action," said the man on the other line.

"All right," said Rouge. "I will call again once I find out more."

"Good," said the man on the other line.

The beep that the man on the other line had hung up came from the phone's speakers. Rouge hit the red button, then stored it back in her pocket and went back to work.

She would sneak in again late the next day, for there was supposed to be an executive meeting on the top floor after hours. She would work overtime, collect her check, and then go upstairs to hear what the executive meeting was about.

She sipped her coffee, and upon finding that it had gotten distastefully cold in her absence, went to the trash can on the floor and emptied the mug of its contents.

* * *

**Tuesday, July 13**

A certain Ivo Robotnick stood in front of a set of tubes, thinking on nothing in particular.

His large crimson overcoat with stretches of blankness running along somehow shone in the faint glimmer of the containment tube in front of him. His bald head also shone off of it, as did his red-orange moustache.

"Thank goodness that security update came today," said the doctor aloud. "I'll need it for tomorrow once we start testing the virus."

As he stood there thinking, he knew that people would be outraged at what he was doing, especially the religiously minded individuals in Station Square. However, he knew that it would be a selling point among those who would want what he would give them if the executives gave him the okay. One thing about being CEO of a company that he had learned was that he could not allow people's negative opinions to weigh him down. He had to keep going to bring a revolution in the field of science that he knew had to be achieved.

His train of thought came crashing around him as an aide went up to him.

"Dr. Robotnick, the executives have been seated," said the aide.

The doctor sighed, and then turned to him.

"Thank you," said the doctor.

He then walked towards a door that was close by.

* * *

Rouge stayed at the doorway, careful to be out of sight of both the executives and the security cameras. She could not see anything that was going on in the meeting, so she had to imagine what was going on in her head. 

She stood at the doorway so she could get out as soon as the meeting had ended. She had decided a while ago that she could not call while still in the building; she had to get as far away from it as she wanted to, and then she would have to call her boss at the government to see what she had to do.

However, she stood and waited, her sensitive ears picking up a sound of clapping and a set of footsteps on a makeshift stage.

"Good evening, gentlemen," boomed Ivo Robotnick's voice, obviously amplified by a microphone. "I assume you are all asking yourselves what my big plan for the company's new direction will be."

_Well, obviously,_ thought Rouge. _Why else do you think that I'm here? To get answers._

"Well, I have a great revelation on the platter today," said Robotnick. "I am going to do something that nobody in history has dared to do before. It will be one of the biggest medical breakthroughs ever."

_And that is…?_ thought Rouge.

"I am planning on marketing a cure, for death!" exclaimed the CEO.

Rouge literally lost her hold on herself.

_A cure for death? How the hell are you supposed to market that?_

This raced into the agent's mind as she crept closer to the meeting space. Whatever Robotnick had in his sleeve, Rouge figured it was not going to be pretty. Therefore, she could not be content with standing at the doorway imagining the proceedings; she wanted to see if the doctor knew his stuff.

"Death," said Robotnick, as if to solidify the questions that ran throughout the crowd. "Some consider it a one-way portal. Well, after this cure is marketed, there will be no more need for it to be a one-way portal; now, it is a two-way vacation into the unknown that anybody can tell. It will be Zodiac's biggest prospect yet!"

By this time, Rouge had reached the meeting room and had peered through an open doorway. A bunch of executives in suits sat in a bunch of chairs in front of a platform that was elevated by small little things.

_Typical high school auditorium fare…_ thought Rouge.

"This will be the way to our success," continued the doctor. "This will fuel the fire that we desperately need! This will make us great!"

A hand went up somewhere in the audience.

"Yes?" asked the doctor.

"Does the subject run on blood?" asked the person.

"No," said Robotnick. "They operate only with their head; heartbeat becomes redundant in the body, and all traces of blood are absent.

"Then can they die?" asked another person.

"Yes," said Robotnick. "If the subject experiences any form of acute trauma to the head, he can die again. This includes being shot in the head, being beaten by a blunt object, or being beheaded."

"And how exactly does this cure work?" asked a third person.

"It's quite simple, really," said Robotnick. "The scientists here at the top three floors have genetically engineered a virus so that it replicates RNA strands of the organism it infects in the brain; so much RNA is built up in the cells that mitosis starts again in the nerve cells. Then, the chemicals that control stimulus begin to run through the body again, and the basic functions begin to be revitalized. Thus, the subject is brought back to life. Would Subject B-32 please be brought out for us to see?"

A pair of doctors wheeled a hospital trolley onto the stage, a sheet over the body and a syringe with air in it on the trolley. It was then propped up by something and the sheet was taken away to reveal a cat strapped onto the table.

_Oh my God…_ thought Rouge. _It's Agent Blaze!_

Agent Blaze was in terrible condition; her majestic violet fur had been tainted by quite a bit of blood, but this was the least of the problems. The body had by then decomposed quite a bit, such that certain sections of her ears and nose were completely absent and such that a thin film of flesh showed in certain patches of the fur.

Robotnick picked up the syringe from its slot in the table.

"In this syringe is water that is contaminated with the genetically engineered virus," said Robotnick. "Watch what happens when I inject it into this woman.

The doctor dabbed a spot on Blaze's arm with cotton, then jabbed the needle carefully into it and injected the fluid into her bloodstream.

"Now, we shall wait a few minutes for the RNA to be replicated," said Robotnick.

And everybody remained silent, waiting on what was going to happen next.

After an uneasy interval of about six minutes or so, Blaze's eyes flickered open a little slowly before showing their full might.

"And, success!" said Robotnick.

As people gasped in pleasure, Rouge almost felt like vomiting. Blaze's eyes were blank and devoid of expression; the irises and pupils were nonexistent, and she wondered how people could gasp in pleasure like that.

Another question was asked, but Rouge had seen enough. She snuck along the walls, hoping to find the central computer to figure out where the samples were located so she could steal one to prove to the government that the man was truly insane.

After walking down dim hallway after dim hallway, she finally came across a room with a computer monitor made of air and a typewriter in front of it. In this room were several containment tubes that the bat now assumed held the remaining subjects.

Rouge went to the keyboard and logged in. She had seen the username 'letsgotolife' in the user bar when she was on the same floor the day before, and judging from the keyboard positions she had gathered that the password was 'Kindertotenlieder'. She typed the said expressions up, and she got an ACCESS GRANTED sign to congratulate her for doing the right thing.

Rouge then concentrated on trying to find where the samples were stored. However, after several minutes of searching she was lost.

She had arrived at a menu that said 'subject states' and 'virus quantity'. She motioned the highlighter around the options to 'subject states' and saw a small little message saying 'contained'. The highlighter was set to 'release', with 'release all', 'release with injection', 'release all with injection', and 'back' being on the options.

She moved the highlighter to 'release all with injection', intending to hit the back button.

The bat's sensitive ears picked up applause from the other room, but in her carelessness she swerved around and hit the enter key.

A slight beeping came from the monitor, and Rouge looked at it.

The words 'injecting with virus' appeared, followed a few seconds later by the containment tubes opening with a light hiss.

"Shit," Rouge whispered.

She knew it took a few minutes for the subjects to come to life, so she went back to the last screen and went to 'virus quantity'. There, the options were to release the virus into something that she could not determine.

A faint grunt came from behind her, and she saw a pink hedgehog with horrifying gunshot wounds in the head opening her eyes.

It did not make sense to the bat; it took a few minutes to set in, and yet this girl had awoken within seconds of being injected.

In her carelessness of looking behind her, her hand went to the enter key and hit it.

Immediately, a hiss came from close to her.

"Oh, fuck," said Rouge.

The pink hedgehog had started to walk towards Rouge, grunting unintelligibly as she neared the bat.

Rouge waited until the hedgehog came closer, then gave her a good kick in the stomach before running out of the room and retracing her steps until several minutes later when she was panting outside of the Zodiac building. This had flown by in what had seemed like seconds.

The night overpowered Rouge as she regained her composure and walked away from the building.

"Oh dear…" said Rouge. "The guy's a nutcase. I have to tell upper management as soon as possible!"

The bat picked up her cell phone and dialed, thankful that she had escaped the top floor and that the story would be over soon.

* * *

Had Rouge stayed on the top floor, she would not have been killed. 

At least, not by the scientists that killed Blaze.

Several minutes after Robotnick was applauded for his breakthrough, a scientist came into the meeting raving that the subjects had been revitalized and that they had all been released. A host of grunts had slowly begun to form in all directions, and finally a mass of beings all similar to Blaze and the pink hedgehog strolled in rather quickly, bleached eyes staring ahead of them. Then, a large crocodile with knife marks in his chest and abdomen picked up a chair that a person was sitting in and bashed the person to death with the chair.

Soon, all of the other subjects had followed suit, and then they all threw their chairs at the other executives, thereby killing them too. The remaining executives and Dr. Robotnick were frightened beyond their minds, but none of them could escape because the doors were barred by the other subjects.

It took no work to kill all of the others remaining in the room or the scientists that remained in there to assist the announcement. A great series of crunching sounds sounded in the building and escaped into the air of the outside world as a faint murmur afterwards.

And shortly after this, the virus had been fully instigated in the air of the laboratory, and it hovered over the half-eaten, disfigured bodies of the executives and scientists, waiting for a chance to enter. The virus also escaped the building through whatever holes in the structure existed, thus contaminating the air with the cure for death.

The nightmare had just begun…


	4. Chapter 3

Hello, children. What's up?

I posted a version of the fic on FESS recently, so if you're a member of that site go check it out.

Also, if you look at it, don't be afraid to let me know that you read it and what you found wrong with it. I'm always looking for feedback, and if you don't flame me I will greatly appreciate it and work on things that need improvement. I'm also open to answer any questions you might have about the text, so go ahead and ask if you want.

That being said, I present to you the next chapter of this story. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 3

**Wednesday, July 14**

**5:01 A.M.**

Shadow stood in the graveyard at the Station Park in the center of the city. He held a bouquet of flowers in front of his chest, and he stood alone in the rain.

He stood in front of the grave of Knuckles the Echidna, eyes staring forward solemnly yet with some kind of control over his being. He had promised himself he would not cry in the early morning hours; even though nobody could see him in the darkness of five o'clock A.M. he held on to this.

The hedgehog did it more for himself and Knuckles than anything, really. On his deathbed, Shadow had promised Knuckles not to cry whenever he visited the grave, so Shadow would cling to the promise.

He stood there, remembering all of the good times he had with the echidna. He may have gone to rest to a horrifying demise, but he would not remember Knuckles for his illness; despite the fact that Knuckles was ill with AIDS, Shadow would remember him as the cheerful person that he was opt to be and nothing more.

Eventually, after the last good memory of Knuckles wore down, he knelt in front of the grave and placed the bouquet there. He then patted the damp earth that stood watch above Knuckles' body for what would be eternity.

"I'll miss ya, man," said Shadow, adopting Knuckles' vernacular for one of the last times Shadow would see the echidna.

The hedgehog then stood up and walked away.

As he walked, he felt a small rumble on his foot by the grave next to him.

It subsided after a little, though, so the hedgehog shrugged and dismissed it as he continued walking in the early morning hours.

* * *

**9:05 A.M.**

Rouge walked into the building of her workplace, a little nervous from the events of the night before. She saw Cody standing guard in the lobby the way he normally did, and she thanked God that she had somebody she could talk to about the events of last night.

Therefore, she made a beeline for the dog as he smiled upon seeing her.

"Morning, Rouge," said Cody.

Rouge looked around nervously.

"Any reason you're nervous right now?" asked Cody.

Rouge nodded.

"_Would you keep it a secret?_" signed Rouge promptly.

"Sure, sure," said Cody. "What happened?"

"_I was at the top floor last night,_" signed Rouge. "_Government work._"

Cody nodded, understanding what was going on in Rouge's head. After all, nobody was permitted to the top three floors of the building without special permission, and if Rouge had somehow snuck out of there alive there must have been something up there.

"So what was in there?" asked Cody.

"_I don't know,_" signed Rouge. "_The CEO was having a press conference up there, and he said something about a cure for death!_"

Cody was very surprised to see the bit about curing death; the dog knew as well as anybody that trying to raise the dead was similar in concept to teaching a car how to recite the ABC's; it was absurd and very immoral in nature.

"And what happened then?" asked Cody.

"_I have no idea,_" signed Rouge. "_Because next thing I know, I try to retrieve a sample and it all goes to hell when the subjects are released. I don't know what happened afterwards. I left after that._"

"Subjects?" asked Cody.

"_That's what the CEO referred to them as,_" signed Rouge. "_They're basically people that have been revived by some virus or whatever. They are still dead, though! They stand and breath and the whole nine yards, but they still look like they're decomposing!_"

Cody nodded, expression grave.

"Well then," said the dog. "With that, we can be certain that—"

Cody noticed the bewildered expression of Rouge, who happened to be looking at the ceiling in this particular moment in time.

"What?" asked Cody.

Rouge looked at Cody.

"_You can't hear it,_" signed the bat. "_It's a terrible moaning. __Coming from the top floors._"

Indeed, several people in the lobby had stopped to stare at the top floor, for an unintelligible series of moaning and groaning was beginning to arise from the top floors.

The moaning was dying away as several elevators showed '73' or '74' above them.

The numbers rapidly decreased to one as the moaning began to die down.

And then, the doors opened.

Out paraded a masquerade of hideous forms. All of them had eyes white as snow with nothing to prove they once had irises and pupils. All of them looked as if they had been in the grave for a long time; knife wounds, bullet holes, anything that signified unnatural death lay imprinted on their flesh, showing the gradual decay of the tissues of the body. Some were so badly decomposed that the glint of light off of a white bone was seen from these. Some looked as if they had been eaten shortly before being induced in the hideous state they were in, as bite marks covered their flesh and loose tatters of what used to be muscle were also seen hanging limply as the figures trudged on in their never-ending march into the lobby.

The sight horrified everybody, even the normally stoic Cody. Thus, everybody who had a sense of cowardice either dove straight for the door or the security guard.

However, the doors refused to open as the people crowded in the doorway in their frantic attempts to escape. Everybody was stuck in the doorway, and thus those that were trying to get out were stuck outside.

However, they stopped thrashing around when they noticed that other figures similar to the ones that were found inside were already stomping around the surrounding street. Some stray civilians were found running for their lives in the terror, but for the most part the animated bodies inhabited the streets.

This only led to more clamor as the people tried to get out.

However, by then it was already too late for most people. Rouge and Cody had jumped behind a desk as soon as the clerks had emptied it, and they were there to witness the sheer power of the mass of hideous creatures.

For soon, bodies not belonging to the hoard had begun to collapse as the fists of the creatures banged against the heads of the people over and over again until they slumped to the floor dead. Most of them went on to other people, but a few stray ones went to the dead ones.

When the stray ones went to the dead people, they inspected the body seemingly the way a child would inspect a new toy.

Then they would bring an arm or any different appendage up to their mouth, and a sickening crunch of human flesh being eaten came from within their mouths as the creatures bit down.

Upon seeing this sight, Rouge nearly vomited. It was only with Cody's reassuring touch that she kept her composure.

"_And what do we do now?_" asked Rouge, somehow managing to remember to sign her question amidst the shock of what she had seen.

"There's a secret passage over here that we use as the Alamo if anything goes unbelievably wrong," said Cody. "Take my hand."

Rouge obeyed, and her hand linked with Cody's hand.

Then, the bat felt her body being abruptly lifted and pulled as Cody made a break for the door that led to where the offices for the clerks were, and then he raced past the empty cubicles before coming across a wall. He promptly poked this with a short jolt from his taser, and the wall opened.

Cody then grabbed Rouge and went right down the passageway, leaving the hideous mass and the dying people behind him.

* * *

**10:15**** A.M.**

Laughter went up high in Tails' apartment as Sonic read passages from one of his summer reading assignments to Tails.

"Wow," said Tails. "That made no sense."

"You bet it didn't," said Sonic. "Half the things that happen in the book don't even make sense. It's _Catch 22._ The 'catch' catches itself in ill logic, ya know?"

"Yes," said Tails. "But why would Milo bomb his own squadron?"

"So he can get a profit," said Sonic, finger pointed up. "Remember that he constantly tells everybody that they have a share and they shut up about things."

"Right, right," said Tails. "And then, what happens?"

"Well, when I go to this page over here, we have a certain Lieutenant Scheisskopf getting promoted to general," said Sonic as he flipped a few pages. "Listen to this! 'Do you know what he wants? He wants us to march. He wants _everybody_ to march!'"

Tails laughed a while, with Sonic chuckling as he looked at the fox with a smile on his face.

"Only natural for somebody who only cares about people marching," said Tails.

"You don't say," said Sonic.

"Yeah," said Tails.

"So, that's all I'm going to go into with that one," said Sonic as he closed the book and put it down on the coffee table. "Anything else?"

"How far are you in _The Awakening_?" asked Tails.

"Oh, that?" asked Sonic, picking up the volume. "God, I have to constantly pat myself in the face to keep myself from falling asleep when I read it."

"Yeah," said Tails.

Around this time, a soft murmur began to build, but neither humanoid creature noticed it since it was so soft.

"The problem is the language," said Sonic. "The language is too fancy for my tastes."

"I can imagine it being so," said Tails. "After all, you never have liked stuff in archaic languages anyway."

"Yeah," said Sonic. "They get boring really quickly."

The murmur had begun to build, and Tails was visibly annoyed by it.

"Okay, who here is having a party?" asked Tails.

"What, getting too loud for you?" asked Sonic.

"Yes," said Tails. "I wish they would quiet down."

The murmur eventually rose to intelligible murmurs. The hedgehog looked at the fox this time.

"I think they're too loud," said Sonic.

Tails nodded, and the hedgehog stood in front of the door.

"Hey, you!" shouted Sonic, quills rising on his head as he yelled. "You're getting a bit rowdy! Be quiet, for crying out loud!"

He waited, and the groans kept on rising in volume.

"Okay, that does it," said Sonic as he opened the door and poked his head outside of the doorway. "Hey, you! Shut—!"

Sonic suddenly stepped back.

"Sonic?" asked Tails.

The hedgehog turned to Tails, panic in his eyes.

"Tails, we gotta get out of here," said Sonic. "Something isn't good here."

"What's the matter?" asked Tails.

A moan came from the door, and the fox jumped in fright as he saw what looked like a partially decomposed person standing in the doorway with blank eyes.

"That's the matter," said Sonic. "We need to get to the fire escape!"

"But why?" asked Tails. "I'm sure he can't do anything."

"I see dead people in the halls," said Sonic.

This alarmed the fox more than anything, and he instantly recognized that Sonic was not trying to recreate something straight out of a horror movie as a practical joke.

After all, what kind of make-up existed for pupils to be completely white?

Thus, Tails took Sonic's hand, and in less than an instant Sonic had bounded out of the window that was next to the fire escape with a loud shattering of glass accompanying the two of them.

* * *

**12:13 P.M.**

Wave stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for somebody to come.

Jet, Wave and Storm had arrived on time to the function that they went to every Wednesday of the month. Since the Babylon Rogues were a relatively small gang, they really were under fragile influence. Therefore, they turned to the Chaotix gang for help. Chaotix was slightly larger, and it was also trained better in criminal actions. Therefore, the two agreed to help each other as long as the Babylon Rogues would be able to pay at least thirty dollars every month.

As they stood there waiting, a purple chameleon stepped into the light of the bright Wednesday afternoon sun.

"'Sup?" asked Jet.

"A lot," said the chameleon as he walked.

Wave looked at the chameleon, finding he was alone.

"That's odd, Espio," said the swallow. "Where are Vector and Charmy?"

"I wish I knew," said Espio. "They were supposed to be at a function for a new gang that had formed, but they disappeared."

"And why didn't you go?" asked Jet.

"I was busy," said Espio. "You know how many functions I have to go to in a month."

"Yeah," said Jet. "Anyways, we have the thirty dollars, right here."

Jet said this as he walked forward and presented a twenty dollar bill and a ten dollar bill.

"Good," said Espio. "Have you guys heard the moaning that's been in place all day?"

"Yeah," said Jet. "I haven't figured out why, though. I haven't travelled down any streets, so I can't tell what's going on here."

It was true, really; when Jet had woken up at eleven in the morning that day, he had heard an odd undertone of moans. Wave and Storm were not up yet, so Jet woke them up and directed them through the sewer system as was customary of them to do to avoid being spotted. Whatever it was, though, they would have to find out.

"I know what you mean," said Espio. "Me? I'm too good at roof-jumping to care."

"It's odd, actually," said Wave. "Yesterday everything was normal, and now we get this groaning. What is that about?"

"I don't know," said Espio.

The moaning that had served as an undertone had suddenly struck a high note right behind Storm as several individual moans were heard.

All four of the people at the function turned around to find a crowd of partly-decomposed people cornering them in the alley they were in.

At the head of the group were a crocodile and a bee, both of whom had knife marks in their skin.

"Vector?" asked Espio. "Charmy?"

A grunt came as a response.

The group then lurched forward, walking towards the four.

"Whoa, whoa," said Wave. "Can't we settle this the nice way?"

The response came in the form of a brusque grunt from one of the crowd.

"Okay, then…" said Wave.

They kept on walking backwards, little beads of sweat forming on their faces.

"This is bad…" said Jet as he looked behind him to find the wall there.

As the group approached, Wave spotted a series of metal platforms and stairs high on the side of the building.

"Is that a fire escape?" asked Wave as she pointed to it.

The others looked up and Jet nodded.

"It sure is," said Jet. "Storm, give us a lift up there, will ya?"

"Sure," said Storm, going into the position.

"Okay, Espio," said Jet. "You first."

"No," said Espio. "You first."

"Why?" asked Jet. "You lead Chaotix! You—!"

"There are plenty of people that can replace me," said Espio. "You need to go first. Just do it!"

"Well, okay," said Jet as the crowd of undead creatures approached. "But don't expect me to feel good about it."

Jet walked to Storm, then jumped on his hand as the albatross pitched Jet high enough to get him to the railing of the lowest platform. The hawk grabbed onto this, and after a bit of kicking to find the platform he climbed over.

"Okay, who's next?" asked Jet as he turned around.

However, he suddenly noticed that nobody else could possibly be next, for the hoard was too close to the wall.

"What in…?" asked Jet.

"Jet!" shouted Wave. "Get out of here!"

"What?" asked Jet. "But I can't!"

"Just do it!" shouted Espio. "They'll be after you next!"

The hoard inched ever closer, and then the hoard was right next to the group of gang members.

Then, fists sailed onto the gang members, and yells of pain came from all three of the people he had left behind.

Jet did not need additional convincing. Immediately afterwards he darted up the stairs of the fire escape, finally getting off at the roof and huddling in a corner both in fright and in sadness that his friends were apparently dead.

* * *

**2:35 P.M.**

Shadow sipped his tea as he sat in his apartment.

Apparently, Shadow was not needed in his job as a waiter at a local diner; he had received no call to remind him of his shift, and so he stayed at his house sipping green tea to his heart's content.

It gave him time to think, actually. He thought about Knuckles and their relationship.

He also had time to think about how his life had changed. The hedgehog had gone through a lot, and thus he had to go through the tedious motions of going through his memory and thinking about various things.

As he tumbled the thoughts in his head, he could not help but notice that there was still something missing in his life. Knuckles had managed to fill the gap for the two years they had known each other, but the hedgehog realized that he still needed whatever was in there.

Shadow had no idea what this was, however. He knew it was important, but he had no idea what it was. Therefore, he would have to talk to his friends to find out what was going on.

The groaning that was going on outside had begun to get louder. Shadow sighed mentally, getting tired of all of the groaning. For some reason, he had gotten back home on a silent street to sleep, and then he had woken up a few hours later to a light groaning, and it started to grow. The hedgehog was very annoyed by the groaning, and he was about to whip the shotgun from the wall so he could blow a few heads off.

However, the hedgehog kept his patience and thought as the groaning continued to rise.

As he sipped his tea, he eventually heard the groaning outside of his door as intelligible grunts and moans.

Shadow sighed and set his tea on the counter.

"All right, that does it!" said Shadow.

He walked up to the door and stood in front of it, placing his hands on his hips as he did.

"What the hell do you want?" asked Shadow.

He received no verbal reply.

However, a fist sailed straight through the door, puncturing the wood and revealing a bloody claw.

Shadow immediately knew what this meant; whoever was at the other side of the door, they were trying to break in.

The hedgehog bolted for the cabinet that Knuckles kept the shotgun in and opened it. After this, he loaded it with one of the many unused cartridges in there. He then walked to the door and aimed at the flailing fist.

"I'll give you ten seconds to get away from the door!" shouted Shadow. "Otherwise, I fire!"

Shadow gave a verbal countdown as if to accentuate his point. After eight seconds and noticing the groaning had not stopped and the fist had not stopped flailing, Shadow prepared to fire.

Then, when the countdown reached ten Shadow pulled the trigger.

The hand did not stop flailing, even though Shadow had shot it. After watching the bloody hand flail in the hole, he decided that the fist was not enough.

Therefore, he quickly calculated where the head would be, and then he aimed at that and fired.

The first shot did not make it, but the hedgehog shot at the area again before the flailing hand stopped.

Instead, it simply slumped forward.

Shadow stood there, and then he smacked himself in the forehead for his stupidity.

"Oh, great," said Shadow. "Now that's another person I have to contend with."

Shadow opened the door to see who would have tried to break in.

His expression altered in curiousness when he found that Knuckles' dead body was laying in front of him with a few new bullet holes in his head.

Shadow scowled and looked at a direction in the hall.

"All right!" shouted the hedgehog. "What kind of sick practical joke is this?"

However, looking both ways, he found several people around him.

None of them were normal. In fact, they should have been dead by the way the flies flittered around their partially decomposed skin.

Shadow simply shook his head and went back into his apartment. He then grabbed all of the cartridges in the shelf, stored them in a small little shopping bag that Knuckles had kept for his use in convenience stores, and walked out the door.

He was greeted by a set of groans as the zombies surrounded him. The hedgehog looked around, and noticed that to his right the crowd was only consisting of about five of the dead people.

Shadow shrugged and then prepared to fire the shotgun to his right.

"Well, if you don't answer me I assume you mean me harm," said Shadow. "Therefore, get out of the way before I shoot."

As the dead creatures approached and apparently failed to follow his instructions, the hedgehog fired at one of them. Afterwards, he ran, kicked another zombie out of the way, and made a break for the stairwell as he flew past the other three.

* * *

**4:17 P.M.**

Mighty sat hunched over the desk that he had inhabited for the past few days when Cream was drawing images with various crayons that were scattered all over the table. For being crayons on blank paper, the images did tend to come out good in the end, but Mighty still wished that she had access to better materials than what most children her age were stuck with.

Still, watching her was better than having no ideas for writing a novel.

He knew that life was hard, but he had no idea it would be this way with his job, especially during a bout of writer's block.

Still, Mighty watched.

Finally, Cream looked up at him when she noticed he was watching.

"What's the matter?" asked Cream.

Mighty sighed and rubbed his head. He figured he would have to tell.

"I just can't think of any ideas," said Mighty. "My rough draft is almost done, but I just can't find a good ending."

"But you have forever to think of it, right?" asked Cream.

"No," said Mighty. "I have to get it to the publishers by next Tuesday. Otherwise, I'm out of a job and my degree won't be worth anything."

"What's the story about?" asked Cream.

"Well, it's rather complicated," said Mighty. "Plus, it has… parent… material."

"Oh," said Cream. "I would like to help though!"

"It's okay," said Mighty. "I'll think of something. You keep drawing over there."

Cream nodded and returned to her crayons.

Mighty let out a silent sigh and sat back in his chair as he thought as hard as he could.

Suddenly, though, the light fixture above buzzed loudly as the light dimmed and came back. The buzz remained, and afterwards the lights went out.

Cream and Mighty were both shocked by events, and they were both very bewildered by what had happened.

However, Cream did not scream as Mighty figured she would.

"What was that?" asked Cream.

"That's a good question," said Mighty. "I'm calling some people I know. We'll get the power back up in a bit."

Mighty then walked to the phone; the electricity had gone out, but the sun was still up and it was pretty easy to walk to the stand. He dialed a number, but all he got was the incessant tone of the operator being unavailable.

He tried dialing the number again and again, but it was of no use.

Finally, he slammed the phone back into the holster in frustration and turned to Cream, who had her ear pressed against the doorway.

This was when Mighty realized that the air conditioning unit was still on.

"Wait," said the armadillo. "How come the AC is still on?"

"I don't think it's the AC," said Cream.

"Why do you say that?" asked Mighty.

"Listen here," said Cream, pointing at the door.

Mighty went up to it and brought his ear next to the door.

It was not the constant rumble of the AC he had heard, but rather a low moaning coming from within the hallway.

Mighty opened the door, and looked around to find a pack of hideous people standing at the staircase.

The armadillo promptly closed the door.

"Cream?" he asked.

"Yes?" asked the young girl.

"I need you to hold some things for me," said the armadillo as he went to his bedroom.

"What do you want me to hold?" asked Cream as he entered and opened the night table.

"I'll give it to you," said Mighty, going through the drawer to find all of the lead balls that were inside of the thing and holding as many as he could in one hand before leaving them on the bed and taking out a revolver from the drawer.

He then proceeded to load six pellets into the revolver, then found six more in the drawer. Mighty had never been an advocate of excessive use of guns, but he still owned one to make sure he was safe at night, and in a situation such as this he was sure they would come in handy against the creatures guarding the stairwell.

After gathering the pellets, he walked out and handed the pellets to Cream, who had stood there expectantly.

"Okay," said Mighty. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," said Cream as she stuffed the pellets into her pockets.

"Good," said Mighty. "I want you to stay next to me no matter what, and when I tell you to 'give me some ammo', I want you to fish into those pockets and get me six of the things I gave you. Understand?"

"Where are we going?" asked Cream.

"I don't think we can stay here," said Mighty. "Just stay close and trust me on this one."

Cream nodded, and Mighty kicked the door down.

Cream beheld the creatures at the stairwell upon exiting, and only then did she scream as Mighty grabbed her hand and went by them, shooting them in the head with the revolver as he went.

* * *

**6:17 P.M.**

The sun had begun to set unusually early that evening, emitting a bloody glow as it settled behind the buildings that had once housed several thousand people.

However, this was the least of Rouge and Cody's problems. They had to deal with a mass of undead creatures in the city that were all around them, and thus Rouge and Cody had to be aware of what was going on around them.

Just then, they had left Rouge's apartment from stocking up on weapons, ammunition, and supplies that they would need for their long standoff alone in the city. Over his shoulder the dog held a bag containing all of the food and water that the two would need for their time alone. Rouge held a semi-automatic rifle and a Desert Eagle in her hands, the semi-automatic perched on her right shoulder in case Cody had to take it for use against the hoard.

Cody and Rouge looked around, and then they faced each other.

The bat placed the weapons on the floor and stood up to face the dog.

"_So what do we do now?_" signed the bat.

Cody looked ahead, then looked to his right where the hallway stretched into the elevators.

"Let's go find out if anybody else survived this apparent pandemic," said Cody.

Rouge nodded, and she then stooped down to collect the weapons she needed.


	5. Chapter 4

Hello, children. You know who's talking by now. 

I just had the first rehearsal of the year for the string group that I went to Japan with last year (long story short, me and eleven other people my age went to Japan to play at a music festival in Kagoshima), and I had quite a bit of fun. I am so glad I decided to to viola over there now; man, I love playing viola a lot! 

You know the rest. Here's the chapter, enjoy, etc. 

* * *

Chapter 4

**Thursday****, July 15**

**8:57 A.M.**

Sonic opened his eyes to look up at a sky with a large concentration of rain clouds. He felt drops of rain fall onto his fur, staining it with no color in particular as he looked on.

He sat up from his slumber, feet dangling over the edge of the garbage dumpster that he and Tails were forced to sleep on due to the concentration of zombies in the area.

The two had not had a good Wednesday at all; normally, Wednesday was their favorite day to run around, but they never thought they would have to run around under such tensions. There were undead creatures everywhere they ran, and the two of them were very lucky to have gotten through the horde unharmed.

They had to sleep on a dumpster; apparently zombies were also in most of the surrounding buildings, which cut any chance of surviving in one such place alone.

The hedgehog shook his head as he looked up. All of the zombies seemed to march towards him and Tails in a desperate play for food. How they were going to get past the horde was something at the front of Sonic's mind.

However, he did not mind so long as it was fun to do. Sonic was always looking for any kind of adventure, and if he had to dodge zombies on a given day he figured there would be some kind of element of fun.

Immediately then, though, Sonic continued looking up, waiting for Tails to wake.

Eventually, he heard a soft exhale. Sonic turned to see Tails' form shifting a little. The fox's sapphire eyes then showed themselves to the world as he sat and stretched his arms.

"Morning, bro," said Sonic.

Tails finished yawning, then looked at the hedgehog.

"Morning," said Tails. "How thick has the horde gotten?"

"That's a good question," said Sonic. "By now, they must be all over the place."

"So what do we do now?" asked Tails.

Sonic gazed up at the sky, trying to think. The hedgehog was looking for fun, but if it jeopardized Tails he could not condone to it. He had all of the wild fantasies of running amidst the crowd for a while, but with Tails in tow the hedgehog realized this was unfeasible.

Just when Sonic got stumped with ideas, Tails' stomach conveniently growled from lack of food.

Sonic chuckled a little.

"How about we get some breakfast somewhere?" asked Sonic. "Behind counters?"

"Why behind the counter?" asked Tails. "We'd get in trouble."

"We don't have much of a choice, really," said Sonic. "Besides, if the whole city has become one of those things, then what are we to do? We can't go back to the apartment, you know."

Tails opened his mouth to say something, but after thinking a little he closed it again. Sonic did have a point, and the fox could not deny the hedgehog his right to be reasonable.

Thus, he let his guard down and nodded.

"I know what you mean," said Tails. "Where to?"

"That's a darn good question," said Sonic. "We should probably go to somewhere wherever we see it."

"Yeah," said Tails. "I follow you."

The two of them jumped off of the edge of the dumpster onto the ground below. Tails took Sonic's hand, knowing the hedgehog would run as fast as he could and Tails would be powerless to follow.

"Okay then," said Sonic. "Hang on tight!"

The hedgehog then began to run, and the two of them were already traveling at a rather quick speed by the time they exited the alleyway. The groans of the zombies flittered by as certain individuals of this group blazed by in an eternal blur. Sonic never lost his energy to anything, and if he bumped into a zombie he kept on running.

Tails looked forward as he watched the zombies flitter by, heads turning in time to witness Sonic's form pass them as he ran as fast as he could.

The fox knew that Sonic could run very fast from what he had heard from the hedgehog. After all, Sonic was a vital asset in his school's track team. The hedgehog usually won the longer races in the track meets, and in fact he had attained something of a cult following because of it.

With this in mind, Tails knew that Sonic would pull through.

And eventually, they happened across a small little restaurant with a somewhat colorful sign on top of it. There was nothing inside of there, so Tails and Sonic figured it was safe to enter.

And they did. Sonic slammed the door behind him (thankfully, it opened into the inside of the place), and the two of them barricaded the door with a few tables and a chair as quickly as they could.

"We made it," said Tails.

"Yep," said Sonic. "And it looks like we're in a place that can turn out somewhat decent."

"Yeah," said Tails. "Why's the power out?"

"If the horde's gotten large enough, then nobody's over at the power plant to regulate the power in the city," said Sonic as he walked to the counter. "We're going to be relying on cold stuff for a while."

Tails shook his head.

"Well, okay," said the fox. "But I'm not going to like that much."

Sonic shrugged and jumped behind the counter.

"Well, we can always try to make a fire," said Sonic. "I see a set of matches and some propane gas over to a corner."

"That's great!" said Tails excitedly.

The hedgehog smiled at Tails.

"So, you wanna see what's back here?" asked Sonic as the fox walked to the counter.

"Yep," said Tails.

Sonic held his hand out to the fox. Tails took it, and then he felt himself hoisted over the counter by the hedgehog such that his feet landed on the cold floor on the other side of the counter.

The two of them then entered the kitchen and began scouring it for things to eat.

* * *

**9:13 A.M.**

Cream and Mighty stood in the armory as Mighty grabbed more revolver pellets for himself and for Cream.

"Well, looks like we'll be fine," said the armadillo as he grabbed a few more pellets and handed them to Cream. "Are you okay?"

Mighty had a myriad of reasons for asking, but they all boiled down to the same basic concept for him; after Cream had seen the creatures, she had been scared ever since. Mighty did not blame the little girl since nobody had ever needed to get used to the dead walking in the streets, so he understood completely.

"Y-yes…" said Cream as her figure shivered lightly enough not to be seen.

"Aw, Cream," said Mighty. "It's going to be okay in the end. I'll get you back to your mom, okay?"

The rabbit nodded in response, to which Mighty smiled.

"Then let's go," said Mighty as he took the girl's hand and walked out of the armory.

Surprisingly, the street was empty when they emerged. When they had arrived the night before Mighty remembered that he had a hard time navigating through a crowd of dead people. However, the crowd seemed to have disappeared. Aside from the stray streetcar that was permanently stopped in front of a parking meter on the other side of the street, nothing too interesting was to be seen.

Mighty looked around, and jerked suddenly when Cream gasped lightly.

Fearing another appearance of the horde, Mighty clutched Cream close to his leg and looked in the direction that she was looking at.

However, all he saw was the form of a green hawk sleeping on the curb.

"Is he alive?" asked Mighty.

Cream walked up to the sleeping form as Mighty let go of her. She then looked at him and nodded in response to his question. The girl then walked back up to Mighty.

"We should do something for him," said Cream. "We need to tell him about all of these things that are going around the place."

"I don't think it's hard to tell what's going on by now," said Mighty. "Come on."

"But we have to do something!" said Cream. "Why don't we leave him something to defend himself with?"

Mighty moved to make a comeback, but his words failed him when he opened his mouth. Cream did have a point; what was the use of staying informed when there was nothing to protect yourself against what you know about?

Mighty thought about it, and when he finally considered a little with himself, he grabbed Cream's hand.

"Let's go back to the armory," said Mighty.

It was not very far anyway, so Mighty and Cream stepped back into the armory.

They came out holding a bag of ammunition and a magnum that the two of them were sure he would be able to work with.

Cream then walked to the stranger, looked over his sleeping form as if memorizing the patterns of his feathers, and then set the bag down quietly in front of his face so that he would see it when he woke up.

The little girl then stood up and walked back to Mighty.

"There," said Mighty. "See? I told you I could fulfill your demands somehow."

Cream nodded.

"So, where do we go next?" asked Cream.

"Somewhere to find something to eat," said Mighty. "Come on."

The armadillo took the rabbit's hand and they walked away.

Around a half hour later, the sleeping hawk woke up after turning a little.

He sat up and stretched, emerald eyes opening slowly to greet the new day.

Jet had had a rather good sleep. He had had a rather disturbing dream about Wave and Storm, but other than that he was okay. He decided he needed to find help, even if it got him in jail in the end.

As he stood up, he heard something that sounded like a paper bag rustling in the breeze. He lifted his right foot as he looked down upon a plastic bag of something that he was not readily able to determine.

Immediately, he bent down and went through the bag, finding a pistol and a few cartridges of ammunition in there.

The hawk immediately smiled as he stood up, picked up the gun, and inserted a cartridge into it.

"Man, this is an act of God," said Jet. "I wonder who…"

He stared down into the bag to find a note inside.

The hawk stooped down again and picked up the sliver of paper. He was not illiterate, so he was able to read the small little handwriting perfectly fine. He found it odd that it was written with what looked to be the residue of a red crayon, but he dismissed this.

The note read something like this:

"**Be safe with all of these guys out ****t****here. If you do****survive long enough to ****see a young rabbit girl and an armadillo around, be sure to thank the girl for leaving this here.**

**-Mighty and Cream**"

The hawk nodded and stood up, looking to his right as he did as he held the note in his hand.

"Whoever you are, thanks…" said Jet, feathers ruffling lightly in the wind as he picked up the bag of spare ammunition and holstered it over his shoulder.

* * *

**10:57 A.M.**

Shadow stood over the graveyard and the trampled flowers of the park.

The hedgehog was never very surprised by anything, but what lay before him was still quite baffling in the scope of what it could have meant.

Shadow stood in front of the graveyard as it had been after it had apparently been tampered; now, instead of level ground with tombstones neatly arranged in rows and flowers laying on the earth, the scene was very disarrayed. The tombstones that had once been organized seemingly militaristically were very disorganized, with some having fallen face-first into the dirt, fallen to the side or the back, or otherwise had shifted position such that it was leaning against the tombstone next to it for support. The earth too had been tampered with, as numerous holes were seen in front of the tombstones and in fact a stray tombstone here and there had fallen into the hole in front of it. Several wooden splinters were also splayed around the holes, little bits of what had to have been padding still adhering to the surface that it had been stuck to at the time of its conception.

The scene mirrored devastation, and this part was what had surprised the hedgehog.

Still, Shadow kept his composure despite the development he had seen. Seeing Knuckles' body in front of his doorstep made him wonder if some teenagers were playing a prank on him by unearthing him and several others and then posing as them. He would have called the police on them if it was a practical joke, so he made a beeline to the graveyard, noticing that there were plenty of dead people walking around.

When he saw the graveyard, he knew that the scale was far too large for it to be a practical joke.

Something was seriously wrong with the city, but what it was lay far beyond Shadow's comprehension.

Deciding he had seen enough, he turned around intending to find somewhere he could stay. He could try the apartment, but that might have been overrun by whatever the things that he noticed were prowling all over the city lately were, so he knew he had to think of something better.

Finally, his mind was set on the building a couple of blocks away from him.

The hedgehog nodded to himself, cocked his shotgun on his shoulder, and sauntered off to his destination.

* * *

**11:34 A.M.**

Rouge walked alongside Cody as they went on their patrol for survivors. They had encountered nobody during the night, so they stopped and rested in a corner somewhere. When they had woken up and started on their journey again, they had the same kind of ill luck that they had when they searched. They searched everything conceivable for other survivors; alleyways, bedrooms, nothing was safe from their gaze. Every time they checked, however, it was the same thing; it looked as if nobody had survived.

However, they had a strong resolve, and they would find other survivors if it meant they would starve themselves to death for the cause.

The pair stopped by an alleyway and entered, scanning every little detail they came across with great care. The place was barren of any details that seemed to be out of the ordinary, though, and as they went deeper they had a desperate urge to leave.

However, Rouge spotted something on a garbage dumpster that most eyes would not have noticed.

The bat's hand then hovered over a strand of blue fur that lay on the dumpster. She picked it up, and smelled it.

Cody noticed the bat at work, and he stopped searching and walked to Rouge.

"What is it?" asked Cody.

The bat looked up.

"_It's some blue fur_," signed the bat. "_It smells… fresh…_"

Cody's expression lit up.

"Survivors?" asked Cody.

The bat nodded. She then walked out of the alleyway, apparently following the scent of whatever she had found.

The dog shrugged and followed her out of the alleyway knowing that his girlfriend was usually correct when it came to tracking somebody.


	6. Chapter 5

Sorry! I was busy with the epilogue of one of my other fics! 

Anyways, now that I have time for this I'll just go ahead and give you the chapter to keep the delay from being to long. 

Enjoy! 

* * *

Chapter 5 

**12:45 P.M.**

Jet walked into the apartment building, handgun at the ready in case anything came to him.

To his surprise, the zombies were not there yet, as not a hint of blood had tainted the building. An eerie feeling pervaded the lobby though, and Jet was pretty sure that the building had been empty for quite a while due to the lack of lighting and the fact that the paint was pretty sparsely distributed. Some pieces of the insulation were showing, actually, and the plaster was slowly but surely falling away from the wall that it clung to.

Paying no mind to the degraded state of the building around him, the hawk went to the stairs, pretty sure that whatever those things were would not be able to climb stairs.

As he climbed, the hawk wondered what became of his friends. He had been unable to save them, and yet he felt that they were still alive somehow. Jet knew they probably had become part of the horde, but he could not help but feel that there was something more to his feeling than mere recognition that they had joined the things that had appeared.

The hawk sighed as he climbed up the stairs. He knew he should not worry about it, but yet it was something that nagged at him.

These thoughts agitated Jet that he eventually removed the ankh from his glove. He admired it as he usually did, stopping on the stairs as he did.

The hawk wondered if the ankh had been something of a good luck charm for him; after all, he had survived the horde attack that killed his friends, and he did get the weapon and the bag of ammunition from a pair of strangers that he had yet to meet. Jet had never been very into anything supernatural, but at a time like this he could not help but wonder if there really were supernatural forces at play.

The hawk shrugged and put the ankh back into his glove.

He then continued his trek up the stairwell.

* * *

**2:23 P.M.**

Sonic held a small picture in his hand. As Tails sat across the table from him, he stared at it wondering about many things.

The picture was of him and a female chipmunk standing next to each other in front of a backdrop of the perfect summer vacation. They both smiled white, commercial-esque smiles that reflected the sun's every move, and the chipmunk's chocolate eyes shone brilliantly in unison with Sonic's eyes of emerald.

The chipmunk in question was Sonic's girlfriend, Sally. Sally Acorn was the daughter of the President of Knothole Country, and she was usually a very nice girl. The two of them had met during summer camp very early in their lives, and by the time it got to the point where Sonic was unable to contact her after the horde settled in the two had grown very close, such that they eventually started dating each other.

"You miss Sally?" asked Tails.

"Yes," said Sonic. "It's kind of hard not to think of her in this kind of thing, actually."

"I can see why," said Tails. "Thank the lord she moved to Jarshington D.C. last month, or else she would have been caught up in this whole mess."

"Yeah," said Sonic. "I'm just glad she's safe is all. I hope we make it out alive. We both have too much to lose."

"You won't die on me, will you?" asked Tails.

"I won't," said Sonic. "Pinkie swear?"

"Pinkie swear," said Tails.

Sonic nodded and extended his hand forward, his smallest finger sticking out as Tails did the same. The two of them then joined fingers and pulled a slight bit before finally unclasping their hold on each other.

"There," said Sonic. "I'll live."

At this, the horde's moans began to permeate the area in front of the door. When Sonic and Tails turned to look, they found a large number of individuals in front of the restaurant they had taken residence in.

"Hm," said Sonic. "I think our little block tactic worked."

The hedgehog immediately ate his words, however, as one of them punched the glass in front of the horde. Almost immediately, a shower of glass fell on the tables immediately in front of Sonic and Tails, and all of the windows in the surrounding panes felt the blast as they had cracked as well.

"My god, they just punched through the window!" said Tails.

"Oh, crap!" said Sonic loudly.

The hedgehog took the fox's hand and led him into the kitchen as a second burst of a window shattering sounded from the other side. The first part of the horde had already entered the restaurant by the time Sonic and Tails disappeared in the kitchen.

Upon arriving in the white room that they had grown used to over the long hours, Sonic and Tails searched frantically for any means of escape. The back door was out of the question, as there were probably undead waiting for them outside, and there was no truly visible escape method.

Finally, Tails' eyes rested on a white ladder that led into a hole in the ceiling. The fox instantly knew it could serve as an escape route.

"Up there!" shouted Tails, finger directing itself at it as Sonic turned.

The two of them nodded and climbed up the ladder, eventually turning up in a down-trodden apartment. The walls had long since lost the sheen of color that they once had, and the furniture was torn in many places. Some traces of dried blood lay throughout the scene, which disturbed Tails more.

"Come on!" said Sonic as he took the fox's hand again and walked out of the door.

Upon arriving at the door, they heard the intelligible moans of the horde to their right. They looked in this direction, and then they yelled in terror as they made a hard left down the down-trodden corridor, running past light fixture after broken light fixture in their scramble to get somewhere safe.

Eventually, the two of them came upon a doorway at the end of the hall. They entered this to find themselves at a stairway where the walls were white and the stairs themselves were made of metal.

Almost without thinking, Sonic grabbed Tails' hand and plowed his way down the stairs, opening the door at the end to witness another small group of decomposed individuals heading in their direction.

"Crap!" shouted the hedgehog as he slammed the door shut and ran up the stairs almost as fast as he had run down them, the fox having a hard time keeping in step with the hedgehog.

Eventually, they arrived at the roof of the building, after which they opened the door to find the roof vacant of whatever the decomposed beings were.

"We need to find the fire escape!" shouted Tails. "We can escape through that!"

"No kidding!" said Sonic. "Find them!"

The two of them split up in their search for the fire escape. Sonic dashed over to one edge of the building to gaze down at the street to find that the street was vacant of its former occupants.

His eyes widened as he realized that it meant that they could both die up there if they did not find the fire escape. Sonic knew that it was their only hope.

"The fire escape gave way!" shouted Tails.

This snapped Sonic back into reality as he looked at Tails frantically.

"What?" asked Sonic as the fox approached him.

His question remained unanswered as Tails took the hedgehog's hand and led him to where he found the fire escape. The fox then pointed at a series of iron staircases that had gathered there.

"The fire escape gave way!" said Tails. "We're stuck!"

"But how did it happen?" asked Sonic. "Fire escapes don't give way unless the entire building goes down!"

At this moment, the groaning began to build up on the other side of the roof.

Sonic and Tails turned around with fear laced in their eyes as they beheld the horde approaching ever so slowly across the roof.

_Shit…_ thought Sonic as the horde approached.

He felt a form cling to him, and then he noticed that Tails had clung to him very hard.

"I don't wanna die!" shouted Tails. "I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die!"

With each repetition of the phrase, Tails got louder, and with each loud repetition, Sonic's eyes widened more and more in fear as the horde approached ever so slowly in its eternal march towards its next meal.

Sonic walked up against the edge of the building as he felt himself cornered by the horde in its march.

Then, just as the horde was almost on top of the two of them, Sonic heard a few gunshots from the door they had entered in, and as if to match this sound a few of the bodies fell down with a final demented groan accompanying their final demise.

Tails looked up from his spot where he clung to Sonic's fur, tears still fresh from fright.

Suddenly, a white bat entered the scene, firing several handgun rounds at the horde that had cornered Sonic and Tails. Several more fell, and Sonic exhaled deeply as the horde turned around and started walking towards her.

She kept on firing the handgun rounds, and the bodies of the horde members kept on falling in unison with each pull of the trigger. Before long, all of the members had been shot, and three ammunition cartridges lay discarded on the floor next to her.

The bat then blew away the smoke that had started to seep from the barrel of the handgun that she had used, and her attention went immediately to the hedgehog and the fox.

"Are you two kids all right?" asked the bat.

"We're fine, we're fine," said Sonic as he felt Tails let go of him.

"Yeah," said Tails, a sigh of relief escaping his lips as he wiped his forehead. "I was really scared there."

"Don't worry about it, you two," said the bat as Sonic and Tails approached her.

"So, you survived this mess too, huh?" asked Sonic.

"Yes," said the bat. "Me and my boyfriend, actually."

"Then where's the boyfriend?" asked Sonic.

"Don't worry about him," said Rouge. "He's busy cleaning out the floors below us. He should be fine."

"Oh," said Sonic. "I see."

"I think we could do with the pleasure of each other's names," said the bat. "My name is Rouge."

"Rouge?" asked Tails. "That's a great name!"

"Thank you, dear," said Rouge as the three of them walked back into the building. "Yours?"

"Well, my name is Sonic," said the hedgehog. "And my bro here is Tails."

Rouge stopped her descent as Sonic said this. The two boys stopped as well, noticing Rouge stop.

"Something the matter?" asked Tails.

"Brothers?" asked Rouge.

"Oh, don't worry about that!" said the fox as he went next to Sonic. "We know and watch out for each other as if we're brothers. Sort of a sworn-in brother type thing, you know?"

"I was about to say you two looked nothing like each other…" said Rouge, a nervous chuckle escaping her lips after she said this.

"A lot of people do that to us, don't worry about it," said Sonic. "So how did you find us, Rouge?"

"I found a trail from a dumpster," said the bat as they walked down the stairs. "It led to you, so you know where that goes."

"Yeah," said Tails. "Thanks for saving us back there!"

"No problem," said Rouge.

The three continued their walk down the stairway, their conversation continuing as they eventually reached the bottom floor of the building.

* * *

"Damn you stupid zombies!" 

Another round of semi-automatic rifle rounds buried themselves into the horde as Cody yelled this phrase. The dog was unable to hear anything that went around the area, but all the same he knew that he was winning against the zombies.

And apparently, he was managing to get every single one, too. The gunfire attracted the zombies on the higher levels to the second floor, and the dog was in turn capable of killing every single one.

For once, Cody actually felt happy killing people; part of the job description of being a security guard required that they not take pleasure in killing. Yet the dog was unable to feel such a guilt as all of them should have been dead anyway, so he pleasured in doing the right thing.

And one by one, the undead creatures fell down into the ground without moving another muscle.

And after a while, every last zombie was laid to rest.

The dog nodded as he walked to the staircase where he and Rouge had agreed to meet up with once Cody had defeated every last zombie. The dog was dangerously low on ammunition from all of the gunfire he had used, but for him it was not much of a deal; there was nobody that needed to be killed, and they could always restock later.

Thus, the dog walked into the staircase to find Rouge waiting for him, hands around a pair of boys that looked very alive. One of them was a hedgehog with fur the color of the sea. Some parts of it were matted with patches of black oil, but otherwise he looked unharmed. He was accompanied by a fox who looked to be in similar condition to the hedgehog.

"Found some more survivors?" asked Cody.

Rouge nodded, followed by the hedgehog opening his mouth a few times conversationally.

"Eh?" asked Cody. "I can't hear you!"

Rouge promptly handed her handgun to the fox, who took it with a bewildered expression on his face.

"_He says that they had almost bitten the dust here,_" signed Rouge. "_If I hadn't gotten to them in time, they would have died._"

"Ah!" said Cody.

The hedgehog mouthed some more things without much care.

"I'm deaf, damn it!" shouted Cody. "I can't hear a word you're saying!"

The hedgehog clasped his hand to his mouth as his face took on an apologetic tone. He promptly looked to Rouge and mouthed something to her.

"_He says he's sorry,_" signed Rouge. "_He didn't realize you were deaf._"

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Cody, waving his hand dismissively. "A lot of people don't realize it until I bark it at them."

The fox mouthed some things to Rouge.

"_He says I ought to tell you who they are_," signed Rouge. "_The hedgehog is Sonic, and the fox is Tails_."

"Sonic and Tails, eh?" asked Cody, looking first at the hedgehog and then at the fox. "Those are rather unique names, I must say."

The two acquaintances nodded their heads politely. Tails then mouthed some things to Rouge.

"_He's wondering how we found them_," signed Rouge.

"Ask Rouge," responded Cody. "She's the tracking expert."

The fox nodded, and then he proceeded down the stairs.

"Yeah, I think we should leave," said Cody. "We've got nothing else to do here; might as well…"

The hedgehog and the bat descended the staircase after Tails, Cody following closely behind as he walked down the steps on the stairwell.

* * *

**6:45 P.M.**

Shadow put the shotgun on the floor as he entered the vacant room. After this was said and done, he closed and bolted the door behind him and sat on one of the worn out couches that faced a dusty TV set.

"Man, this place looks like something straight out of a Twilight Zone episode…" thought Shadow aloud as he sat.

It was true, actually; strange things had been happening for the hedgehog that there was no true explanation for by anybody else. Couple that with being in a building where everything was in the most squalid of conditions and it was a sure recipe for being in the Twilight Zone.

The hedgehog inhaled, the musty scent of something rather moist entering his nose as he did. The scent bothered his nose, and accordingly it had to be rubbed by the hedgehog.

At least the zombies could not get to him.

The hedgehog decided that some sleep would be good for him since he had spent the night before watching himself shoot zombies in the face. Besides, the couch was not too uncomfortable, and the warm July nights were usually enough for warmth purposes.

Shadow yawned lightly before curling up on the couch and falling asleep.


	7. Chapter 6

Here I am, people! Now, let's get something going here, shall we? 

So _Carmina Burana_ is coming along rather well; in fact, it's coming along much better than I anticipated. Thou knowest the rest about that. 

And... I got ideas for other fics, so I'm going to have to alternate between this and something else. (Hey! I have three fics I have to do now!) 

You know the rest. Here's the chapter. 

* * *

Chapter 6

**Friday, July 16**

**9:02 A.M.**

Cream held on to Mighty's hand as the armadillo walked on in the never-ending gloom of the deserted streets.

So far, the two of them had been lucky for the past day; they had not run into another trace of the horde for a while, and they intended to keep it that way.

The silence that they were immersed in seemed overpowering in the gloomy atmosphere. Cream really felt a need to talk, but she was not sure what to talk about.

Finally, Mighty decided to say something; he noticed the poor girl getting rather wide-eyed.

"You miss your mom?" asked Mighty.

The girl nodded as they walked.

"I wanna see her and Cheese again," said Cream. "I wanna."

"Well, you do know that daddy needs to calm down, right?" asked Mighty.

"I don't care," said Cream. "Maybe he'll calm down when he hears what happened to the city."

"I know what you mean," said Mighty. "You think they're okay back home?"

"I think…" said Cream.

There was nothing much said for a while. Eventually, though, Cream opened her mouth.

"I hope that person we found yesterday is okay," said Cream.

"I'm sure he is," said Mighty, fighting back the urge to call him a lecher and a liar in front of the child. "At least, I hope he's fine. Anything can happen now that this is going on. You get my drift?"

The rabbit nodded.

"I wonder if I'll ever get to see him again…" said Cream.

"If some things happen, I think we will," said Mighty. "But for now, we can only hope that he gets out alive. So let's both pray for his safety, yes?"

The rabbit nodded as the two of them continued down the street towards a very uncertain series of events.

* * *

**11:23 A.M.**

Jet slowly stepped out of the couch that had served as his bed the night before. One of his socks had gotten caught in a loose spring as they had done the night before, but the hawk was fine otherwise.

"Oh, man I needed that," said Jet. "That's the best sleep I've had in years."

And it was true; the hawk had gone to bed at nine the previous night, and he had slept for at least fourteen hours the previous night without being disturbed by anything. It had felt really good, too; Jet had never had such a long sleep in his life. And it had not been disturbed by anything at all.

The hawk felt good in his wakening; his sight was a little odd, but he was fine otherwise.

"I guess I better see what's in the fridge," said Jet aloud as he walked up to a small kitchen area.

Jet had slept in what looked to be a former dormitory lounge that he found he was able to lock. The power was still nonexistent, but otherwise it was a nice setting; there was still food in the refrigerator and there was plenty that he could eat.

The hawk opened the door to find a few fruits on the rows, and he picked up a rather greenish apple from within the bowels of the storage box. He closed the door after finding it and proceeded to chew on it.

From there, the hawk was left to his own devices for deciding how to go through the city. He knew every nook and cranny of Station Square from having spent years living a life of crime just so he could get himself a decent bed to go to every night. However, he knew that by then the zombies were everywhere, so he would have to be careful.

By the time the apple was completely gone, the hawk had decided he would take the sewer route over to the alleyway that was his home. From there, he decided he would have to wing it, but he knew that from his home base he had some idea what to do.

When he had decided that he should get going after a short while of pondering, he opened the window carefully, threw the core of the apple out onto the street nine stories below, and picked up the pistol from where it rested on the counter before walking out of the door.

As the hawk reached the stairs, he felt that he had forgotten something. What it was, he was unable to place, but something told him it was important.

When he reached the stairs, he dismissed the thought, and he opened the door and walked down the stairs.

A few minutes later, he had walked down to the third floor when he heard a loud crashing noise from the other side of the door leading into the floor itself.

The hawk's curiosity instantly got the better of him, and he opened the door and walked into the hallway, walking in the direction that he heard the crash in.

Another crash sounded, and the close proximity of the sound surprised the hawk as he jumped back.

Then, a loud series of clangs rang throughout the hallway as a door fell down off of its hinges along with a mess of what looked like music stands. The stands crashed to the floor as Jet beheld a group of seven zombies walking out of the door and looking at him with the same blank expression.

The hawk let out a surprised yelp as he brought up his handgun. He fired the first round, and his lack of experience with a gun sent him flying backwards onto the floor. His aim was also very off; the shot would not have killed a zombie had it not been for the fact that the bullet ricocheted off of one of the music stands and lodged itself in the back of the creature's head.

Jet stood up as the group neared, and he fired a second shot, this one also sending him to the ground and getting his emerald feathers into a dust bath. The second shot was a little more precise; this hit one of the zombies in the abdomen. It slowed considerably, but the hawk knew he had to do better than that.

Somehow, the next four shots managed to connect with the heads of the zombies despite the fact that Jet was constantly falling to the ground with each shot, and the group walking forwards. There were two zombies headed in his direction by the time he got up the sixth time, and they were closing on him.

The hawk pulled the trigger again, but the click of an empty click sounded. He removed the clip, and his hand instinctively darted for something.

However, whatever that something was evaded Jet. Surprised, he looked at his shoulder to find nothing there.

That was when he realized that he left the ammunition bag back up on the ninth floor.

"Shit!" yelled the hawk as he walked backwards. He yelled another expletive when his back met the strangely calculating foam of the insulation.

The group was closing in on him fast, and now the hawk was cornered without ammunition. Jet shook nervously as he waited for the end to come.

Finally, the zombies were on top of him. They looked at him and grunted, Jet still shaking uncontrollably.

After what seemed like eternity, the larger zombie of the two raised his fist, the hawk screaming as he waited for the end.

However, he suddenly felt warm fluid on his face as a shot sounded nearby. Jet's scream dampened the shot's effect on his ear, and he barely registered the sound of a shotgun reloading as a second shot was fired and the hawk felt more fluids flying onto his face. The hawk then felt the forms of the zombies collapsing on him.

The hawk finally stopped screaming, emerald orbs slowly revealing themselves to the light.

At the far end of the hallway, the hawk saw a black hedgehog holding a smoldering shotgun. His scarlet eyes flared a little in annoyance as he looked at both the hawk and the dead zombies that stood at his feet.

Whatever those eyes meant was of little importance to Jet.

After walking out of the small pile of dead zombie that lay at his feet, Jet brushed off his feathers, majestic jade shining again as he looked at the man who rescued him.

"Man, that was a close one," said Jet. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," said the hedgehog, turning around. "I thought nobody else was in the building when I got here last night."

"So you saw this place too?" asked the hawk, following the hedgehog. "I thought those things couldn't climb stairs!"

"Apparently you're mistaken," said the hedgehog. "They somehow managed to walk up to my apartment a couple of nights ago, and it's on the fourth floor of a building very close to 73rd."

"Ya sure that was them?" asked Jet. "Because it could have been some pranksters."

"Believe me, the scale is too large for it to be a practical joke," responded the hedgehog. "Go to the graveyard and see for yourself."

"But—!" said the hawk.

"They can, and that's the end of it," said the hedgehog. "Now get your stuff. You're leaving, and we're going in separate directions."

"What?" asked Jet, astonishment flagrant in his voice. "But you can't do that! That's cruel!"

"I have my own path," said the hedgehog. "You have your own. Now get your stuff."

"But you can't do that!" shouted Jet, running to the hedgehog and falling to his knees, hands cupped in a position similar to one of a prayer. "I have nobody else in this world to turn to, and I've just been saved by a total stranger! Please tell me there's nothing wrong with staying with that total stranger!"

"I have nobody as well," replied the hedgehog. "Doesn't mean that you can't get well enough on your own."

"But we're alone, with things that can kill us!" shouted Jet. "You saw how bad my aim is! I couldn't possibly do it myself!"

The hedgehog was beginning to turn to leave, but he stopped mid-step as he saw something in Jet's plea that struck a chord inside of his mind.

After standing there, the hedgehog finally turned around and helped the young hawk up.

"Fine," said the hedgehog. "But don't get in my way, or else I will leave. Got it?"

"Oh, thank you!" said Jet.

It was here that the hawk remembered the forgotten bag of ammunition up on the ninth floor. His face flashed surprise as he remembered this.

"I think I left something up on the top floor," said Jet. "I'll be right down."

The hawk then ran down the hall and clambered up the stairs to the ninth floor. After running back to the lounge and finding the bag of ammunition lying on the counter, he grabbed it and dashed back down the stairs to the third floor, finding the hedgehog walking to and fro in between the room of the door that had burst open, bringing the music stands back into the room.

Perplexed, Jet walked into the room to find the said hedgehog realigning percussion equipment in a rather large room, laying a stand down as he did.

"What are you doing?" asked Jet.

If Jet's appearance startled the hedgehog at all, he did not show it. Rather, the black creature turned his head to face Jet.

"Setting the room back up," said the hedgehog. "We can afford a little uniformity in here, yes?"

"True," said Jet. "By the way, the name's Jet."

The hedgehog simply looked at the hawk before nodding.

"Shadow," responded the hedgehog curtly. "Come on. We better get moving soon."

The hawk nodded as Shadow walked to the front of the room.

Secretly, Jet was rather frustrated about Shadow's behavior; on the whole, the hedgehog had been rather cold to the hawk over the little time they had known each other. In several aspects, he was reminded of many good friends of his own who had turned on him in his life. Jet sensed another homophobiac, but he decided to hold his accusations until he knew enough of Shadow to make a good judgment.

This caused the hawk to follow silently as the black hedgehog walked out of the room, shotgun holstered on his shoulder and Jet following along, handgun at the ready in case anything happened.


	8. Chapter 7

Hello, children.

Carmina Burana is coming along much better than I expected. We could use a lot of improvement, but right now we're in good shape for the most part.

I got my wisdom teeth removed last Friday, though, so I'm not exactly feeling great right now. I got off really lucky, though, so I should be fine.

You know the rest. Here's the chapter, and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 7

**1:56 P.M.**

Rouge walked ahead of the group, constantly using her tracking skills to see if anybody else survived what was apparently a massacre. Sonic, Tails, and Cody all trailed along obediently, Tails being right behind Rouge with Sonic and Cody following closely behind.

Nothing much was said, but the two kids were surprised by the gloom on the streets that they had failed to notice earlier.

Sonic simply said nothing, knowing that there was not a lot that could be said in such an atmosphere. Tails said nothing because Sonic said nothing, and the dog said nothing because there was nothing for him to think about.

Eventually, though, they stopped in front of an armory, where Rouge stopped abruptly and turned to face them.

"I think somebody's been here," said Rouge, signing what she said immediately afterwards for Cody.

"What, at this armory?" asked Sonic as Rouge went frantically to work signing everything the hedgehog was saying. "You think they got ammunition and stuff here?"

"Well, it's an armory," said Cody. "What else do you expect?"

"At any rate, we should be able to get weapons here," said Rouge, still signing everything that was being said by everybody but Cody. "I think you two will need to carry something with which to fight."

"But don't we need a license for that?" asked Tails. "I mean, we are young, we can't get a license, so we can't own guns."

There was a rather short silence as everybody pondered on the importance of Tails' statement.

"Kid, one thing you'll learn in life is that there are times where you have no choice but to break a rule or two," said Cody. "In cases where your life is threatened, you may have to use something to defend yourself with that in normal cases would be incorrect. This is one such case. We're trying to get out of this alive, and to do that we need to use guns. All of us. That, or we become one of those things that are prowling about."

The words sank into the fox's mind as Tails nodded.

"Well, okay," said Tails. "If you say so, then I'll do it."

"Then let's go in," said Rouge.

Rouge opened the door and walked into the armory, the rest of the group following the bat into the armory.

Tails and Rouge immediately went for ammunition, with Sonic and Cody looking for weapons that the hedgehog and the fox could use. Tails felt compelled to talk to Rouge since the silence was rather unbearable, so he opened his mouth to speak.

"So, where were you when this crazy stuff started?" asked Tails.

"I was stuck at my workplace," responded Rouge. "Cody actually helped me out of there; if I had gone where everybody else went, there would be no me or you right now."

"Really?" asked Tails. "So how is Cody to you?"

"He can be a little frustrating because of his deafness," replied Rouge. "But he's a nice guy; he's usually very forgiving about things, and he's very sweet too."

"Is he?" asked Tails. "He comes off as a little… well… rough on me."

"He makes that impression on people," said Rouge. "I myself was a little intimidated when I first met him. I mean, he is rather bold and he does get to the point with a rather sharp edge. I guess it's what happens when you grow up trained to be a security guard."

"I would think," said Tails. "So Cody was a security guard?"

"Yes," said Rouge. "But never mind me. You were at your apartment, right?"

"How did you guess?" asked Tails.

"Because that's where I would figure you would be," said Rouge. "You never know sometimes."

"True," said Tails. "I hope we can get out of this alive."

Rouge stopped looking through the ammunition and looked at Tails.

"Believe me, kid," said Rouge. "I think everybody that's survived what's gone on as of now wants to get out of this alive. I think it's the prospect of not resting in peace that scares us all. But what about what happens after?"

Rouge's question set the fox to thinking about something.

"I don't know…" said Tails. "I don't have anybody to turn to outside of the city…"

"Well, we can think of a solution later, yes?" asked Rouge. "By the time this is over, you should have turned something over in your head."

"Yes," said Tails. "I'll think about it."

The bat nodded as Sonic and Cody returned with a pistol in Cody's hand and a bazooka slung over Sonic's shoulder.

"So, what do we use?" asked Tails, turning to face them.

Rouge turned around and signed what the fox said.

"Well, you get to use the pistol," said Cody, handing the gun to Tails as he said this.

"And I got dibs on the bazooka," said Sonic. "I get to blow things up, yo!"

Sonic pulled the bazooka onto his shoulder and fired a few imaginary rounds into the shelves, Tails jumping around and making little explosion noises as Sonic played his imaginary game with the imaginary enemies.

"Yeah, let's settle down, please," said Rouge. "So we need rockets and pistol cartridges. On it!"

As Sonic and Tails laughed at their own game, Rouge scanned the shelves, looking for rockets with which to arm Sonic with.

* * *

**3:46 P.M.**

Shadow stopped in the graveyard, Jet stopping behind him in awe at the sight that Shadow was familiar with.

The hawk ran from behind Shadow, ammunition bag bobbing on his shoulder as he looked at the graves and felt the earth crumbling in his hands.

"Shadow, ya gotta be kidding me!" said Jet as he knelt down on the earth.

The hedgehog simply walked forward and stopped behind the hawk.

"I wish I was, kid," said Shadow. "I wish I was."

"Is this where these guys came from?" asked Jet. Of course, the hawk already knew the answer, but he needed to be asserted.

"Yes," said Shadow. "I take it you need something else to believe that this isn't a practical joke?"

"No," said Jet, standing up and facing the hedgehog. "I'm not a dumbass, you know!"

"And why should you say that?" asked Shadow. "I saved your life, you know. No need to be selfish about it."

"I know that," said Jet, curling his free hand into a fist. "And I'm damn thankful you saved me too."

"Glad to hear it," said Shadow. "I only wish you would stop expounding on it."

Jet moved to yell at the hedgehog when suddenly a footstep came onto the earth next to the two of them. They turned around, finding an undead swallow in front of them walking towards them.

The hawk wasted no time in pulling out his pistol, and he fired at the creature. It hit the thing in the arm, which would not have helped, though thankfully Jet had figured out that he had to place a foot behind him to keep himself from falling over. Immediately afterwards, Shadow shot the creature in the face with a well-aimed shotgun shot, and the swallow fell over.

It wasn't until it had fallen that Jet had noticed that the swallow had lavender feathers.

Thus, as the form hit the ground, Jet looked in shock.

"Oh my God…" said Jet, kneeling at the corpse. "It's Wave!"

Jet searched the corpse afterwards, the hedgehog perking his eye as Jet did so.

"Wave?" asked Shadow.

"She was a friend of mine," said Jet. "We were in the same gang before all of this messed up shit began. I guess she's sleepy now, eh?"

The hedgehog chuckled at Jet's wry humor as the hawk pulled something from within the swallow's glove.

"Here we are," said Jet, taking a set of dog tags out of the glove. "Her dog tags."

"And those are special, why?" asked Shadow.

"I promised them I would dig a hole and leave the dog tags there when she died," said Jet. "She was one of my true friends in life, and I won't let her down."

The hedgehog nodded, scarlet eyes shining sincerely as he looked at Jet.

"Go ahead," said Shadow. "You can dig the hole right here, if you want."

The hawk nodded in thanks, and proceeded to dig a hole right at Wave's feet, dropping the dog tags into the hole afterwards and following the hedgehog to wherever their destination was.

* * *

**5:13 P.M.**

Mighty and Cream had gotten very lucky in reference to the horde.

The creatures had been nowhere in sight when the two of them had decided to hide in a building very close by in some places. There was one large albatross zombie that Mighty had to shoot in the face as they walked, but other than him it seemed that the horde was going to leave them alone for quite a while.

And so, Cream skipped happily along the desolated hallway as Mighty walked down it, looking out for any signs of creatures around. A lot of the doors were locked, though, so they had to keep walking

They eventually came into an open room, though, and Mighty opened the door as Cream skipped happily in.

"Finally, some place we can call home for now," said Mighty as he walked in.

And it turned out that he had walked into an apartment that was very obviously empty. He could not help but notice the zombie corpses laying out in the hall (and particularly the corpse of the echidna that lay at the door), but otherwise it was empty.

Cream jumped on the couch as Mighty went to the kitchen to see if anything was available. The sun was beginning to set, so the armadillo knew he had to eat as soon as possible to avoid the darkness. He managed to scare up a few cheese slices from within the darkness of the refrigerator and a box of crackers in one of the cupboards.

"Dinner is going to be ready," said Mighty. "Cheese and crackers sound fine to you?"

"Yep!" said Cream.

"Then cheese and crackers it is!" said the armadillo, whipping out a plate and laying the cheese and some crackers on it.

Mighty walked over to the couch that Cream was sitting on, himself taking a seat as the girl picked up a cracker and a slice of cheese.

"I think that we were lucky today," said Mighty. "We ran into so little of the horde that it's hard to figure out why they're not here right now."

"Maybe they're somewhere else?" asked Cream.

"I would think so," said the armadillo in reply. "At any rate, we're lucky to be alive right now. And right now, we need to pray that our good luck will last us a long time."

Cream nodded, and she picked up another cracker and a slice of cheese.

"You know, you could write about this if you do get out alive," said Cream.

"I could," said Mighty. "However, I would need more survivors than us to help us out with writing about experiences. We already know the hawk is a survivor, but we need a lot more if we're to write a story about it. Still, it's not a bad idea. It's something that gets me out of writers block, at any rate."

Cream nodded.

"Do you think we'll get out of this alive?" asked Cream innocently.

"Of course," said Mighty. "We've been lucky this entire time. We might get luckier after this. I promise you we'll see your mom again, okay?"

Cream looked at Mighty before she scooted up to him and nodded.

The two of them ate in silence.

* * *

**9:14 P.M.**

Shadow's arm wrapped around the branch of the tree as he helped himself up onto the tree, Jet holding his arm out to the hedgehog in case he needed it.

The hedgehog ended up not using it, though, instead climbing up himself onto the branch and sitting against the tree.

"I don't need the hand," said Shadow.

Jet looked at him, a vehement fire in his eyes.

"I could've used a 'thanks'," said Jet.

"I didn't need it, so I chose not to say thanks," said Shadow.

"But ya should've at least thanked the offer," said Jet. "You know, I don't get what your problem is."

"What do you mean, my problem?" asked Shadow.

"Yes, your problem," said Jet, turning to face the rather indifferent hedgehog. "Since we've left that damn dormitory, you've been giving me the cold treatment."

"Cold treatment?" asked Shadow, facing the hawk with an anger in his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Ya haven't said a word of thanks to anything I've tried to do for you!" said Jet. "I'm tired of being shoved around by somebody who never says thank you!"

"I don't feel a need," said the hedgehog. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need my sleep."

The hedgehog turned away from the hawk and rested his back on the tree, but he turned when a slight shuffle of leaves was heard.

When Shadow turned, he saw Jet preparing to jump out of the tree.

"Jet, what the hell are you doing?" asked Shadow.

"Ya very obviously don't want me here," said Jet coolly. "Therefore, I'm jumping out of the tree."

"Are you stupid?" asked Shadow. "Those things could kill you!"

"Which ya don't seem to care about," said Jet. "Ya delayed my death, but now I'm walkin' right into it."

Jet was about to push off of the branch and onto the ground below, but Shadow almost instinctively grabbed the boy's arm.

"No," said Shadow.

"Then why are you treating me so coldly, then?" asked Jet.

Shadow was unable to come up with a reply.

"You're homophobic, aren't ya?" said Jet accusatorily, pointing a finger at Shadow dangerously after easing his way back onto the branch.

"Homophobic?" asked Shadow, eyes widening in surprise as to where it came from. "What do you mean, homophobic?"

"People that are homophobic always treat me this way!" said Jet, whipping the handgun that he had with him so that it aimed at Shadow's head. "And ya know what? I'm tired of people pushing me around 'cause I'm gay!"

Shadow was taken much aback by this. Jet's tone was very angry, and it had surprised the poor hedgehog to the point that he wondered why he had not told the hawk about Knuckles.

"How can I be homophobic when I myself am gay?" asked Shadow, stammering a little.

Jet's expression stayed, but slowly the hawk lowered the gun.

"So you're gay?" asked Jet.

The hedgehog nodded, knowing that there was no point in denying his sexuality to somebody who threatened to shoot on the basis of homophobia.

"It's just that somebody I cared for a lot died…" said Shadow.

Jet's expression softened a little, and then the hawk nodded and sat on the branch he was on normally.

"I see," said Jet. "In that case, I guess I can forgive you."

The hedgehog nodded, but then he reached out for Jet's shoulder, eventually patting it as he laid his back against the tree.

"Jet?" asked Shadow.

The hawk turned to face his companion.

"Yeah?" asked Jet.

"I'm sorry…" said Shadow. "For being such an ass to you over these past few hours."

The hawk nodded in acknowledgement.

"It's okay," said Jet. "You're forgiven."

The hedgehog nodded, and he leaned back on the tree. Eventually, however, Jet's hand patted the hedgehog's shoulder.

"Say, Shadow," said Jet. "Could ya identify somethin' for me?"

"Of course," said Shadow, extending his hand into the darkness.

The hedgehog saw Jet remove something from his glove, and then he placed the object in Shadow's hand. After this, Shadow leaned forward a little into the light so that he could see the object clearly.

What he saw was a silver ankh, but something about it struck a familiar chord with Shadow.

"Where did you get this from?" asked Shadow.

"It was in the change purse of a lady that I robbed," said Jet. "There was also a chain with it, but I've gotten rid of that since I don't know what the chain was there for."

"My god…" said Shadow. "This was my mother's ankh!"

"And?" asked Jet.

"She bought this from a shaman down in Angel Island," said Shadow. "Supposedly, it was blessed as a good luck charm to whoever had it."

"And why did I eventually come up with it?" asked Jet.

"She lost it on an airplane," said Shadow. "But it's back with a relative of hers."

"Right," said Jet. "You aren't actually going to give it back, are you?"

"No," said Shadow, handing the ankh back to Jet. "It probably saved your life, so you should probably hold on to it. For both of us."

The hawk smiled sincerely and took the ankh back from Shadow, after which he slipped the ankh back into his glove and leaned back on the tree.

"It's so hard to believe that I woke up alone this morning and that now I'm going to bed next to a friend," said Jet.

"I find it hard to believe as well," said Shadow. "You an early riser?"

"Yep," said Jet. "I'll wake you up."

"Alright then," responded Shadow. "Good night."

"'Night," said Jet.

The two of them fell asleep shortly afterwards, both of them happy that they had encountered a friend in the midst of all of the chaos that had been going on over the past few days.


	9. Chapter 8

Hello, children!

This chapter is short and snappy, unfortunately. Sorry, but this was an intermission chapter, and if the day seems to run a little fast for you on this one, well, I did it anyways. I have plans, don't worry about it, but I feel that in the chronology of the storyline it's too soon to implement the ideas I have. I'll get to one of them next chapter, though, so you know where that leads.

So yeah. I recently got myself a copy of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games; it's not a bad game actually. Single event is a little annoying, but it's fun once you start doing circuits and stuff. I think it would work best as a multiplayer game, though I haven't tested that theory yet because I bought it with The Simpsons Game and the new Fire Emblem, I only have two controllers, and I never invite people over to my house anymore the way I used to. You know what I mean?

Here's the chapter. Enjoy!

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you guys out there!

* * *

Chapter 8

**Saturday, July 17**

**7:33 A.M.**

Mighty woke up with a start the next morning to find Cream wandering the apartment.

The armadillo stood up and walked to the young rabbit as she walked around the apartment.

"Mornin'" said Mighty.

Given the surprising nature of where Mighty's greeting came from, Cream naturally jumped a little. Her figure eased a little, though, and she turned to face her guardian without fear.

"Morning," said Cream.

The rabbit turned to look out of the apartment window. The sky shone a brilliant blue, with a few white clouds flittering here and there as a cloud normally would. The sky seemed to shine in perfect harmony, and in any normal circumstance it would have been a great day to go outside.

The armadillo looked outside of the window, gaze viewing the scene with a smirk on his face.

"It looks like a really nice day outside," said Mighty. "Shame that we won't get to go out right now."

With the last sentence, his smirk began to die down.

"I wanna go play outside!" said Cream, pointing at the window! "It's so nice out!"

"I know," said Mighty. "But we can't. We have to be content with playing in here."

The girl looked at Mighty with a confused expression on her face.

"The zombies are still outside, remember?" asked the armadillo, and something clicked with the young rabbit.

"Oh," she said, her face turning glum as she turned away from the window.

"Don't worry about it, though," said Mighty. "We can play in here. How's that?"

The rabbit's face lit up pretty quickly.

"Yay!" she said happily, pounding her arms in the air in excitement. "Let's play hide and seek!"

"Yes," said Mighty. "Let's."

"I'm it!" said Cream. "Now you better get ready.

The rabbit walked over to the couch and laid on it such that the backrest covered her eyes.

As the countdown began, Mighty slipped behind the counter and into a shelf, giggling lightly to himself as he settled himself in there waiting for Cream to find him.

* * *

**12:34 P.M.**

Jet walked quickly behind Shadow as the two looked around for any signs of the horde.

They had gotten lucky that day. They knew the horde was huge, but so far they had not encountered it. Shadow figured it must have split up, but given the fact that Station Square was a rather big city they weren't surprised that the horde was pretty hard to find.

The two of them had not said anything for a while. The cold attitude that Shadow had held for Jet was basically gone by this point, but in all reality there was nothing to talk about between the two of them. They had a one-track mind at this point, and it was to find a safe haven and hopefully find other survivors along the way.

Of course, though, walking the entire day was getting tiring, so finally Shadow stopped at the curb of a street corner and sat down on it.

"I think we need to take a break," said the hedgehog as Jet sat down next to him, wiping sweat off of his forehead as he sat. "Damn the fact that it's July."

"I know, right?" said Jet. "Jesus, it's hot!"

"Yes," said Shadow. "I take it you're not used to this heat?"

"No," said Jet. "I wasn't two years ago when I arrived, and I'm still not used to it."

"When you arrived?" asked Shadow. "So you're not a native to the area?"

"Nope," said Jet.

"Then how have you been living on the streets all this time?" asked Shadow. "I don't intend to treat you coldly, but shouldn't you have been living with family?"

"I ran away from home," responded the hawk, his gloved hand running through some of his head feathers. "I got over here on a Greyman bus that was headed over here."

"Run away from home?" asked Shadow. "Why would you do that?"

"My dad," said Jet, eyes averting to the street.

Shadow immediately felt the somber air surrounding the young hawk as he looked down at the streets, and he instantly regretted saying anything about it.

"I'm sorry that I brought up anything that you would rather not talk about," said Shadow. "You don't need to tell me."

"No, ya got the right to know," said Jet. "My dad was violent as fuck; he'd constantly beat up the family whenever we did something wrong. And it never stopped, no matter how hard the rest of us tried to be good."

"So you took all that for a while?" asked Shadow.

"Yep," said Jet, gaze going back onto the hedgehog's eyes as he looked up. "But then, I came out of the closet to him. And then he went berserk on me."

"So he beat you harder?" asked Shadow.

"Yep," said Jet. "And after that, I knew I couldn't stay. So I took some things, and I left."

"And what about your mother and the rest of the family?" asked Shadow.

"I don't know about them," responded the hawk. "And frankly, I don't want to know what my father did to them after he found out I was gay. I don't want to know, because it's probably ugly."

"I see…" said the hedgehog.

"And I've always been scared for them since I've been here," said Jet, his body beginning to shake a little as tears seemed about ready to form on the young hawk's face. "I don't know what he did to them, and I don't think I ever will. And I'm scared, because they're probably dead right now and I don't know it."

"Hey, it's going to be all right," said the hedgehog, scooting over a little on the curb and draping an arm over Jet's shoulders. "I think that your mom is still sitting somewhere alive, praying that you will return to her someday. In times like this, I think we should always hope for the best in any situation."

The hawk nodded as Shadow gave this little anecdote.

"Thanks," said Jet, an appreciative smile creeping on his lips.

"No problem," said Shadow as he took the arm off of Jet's shoulders.

The hedgehog promptly placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself off of the curb.

"Come on," said Shadow, extending his hand to Jet. "We should probably get going."

The hawk gladly took the hand, and after Shadow helped him up they began their trek anew.

* * *

**5: 57 P.M.**

An apartment door creaked open as Tails peeked into it.

"This looks like a good place to stay," said Tails.

After Rouge finished signing this for Cody, the dog nodded, and the group entered the apartment, Sonic closing the door behind him as they entered.

"Well, looks like we'll be comfortable here," said Rouge, still signing for Cody. "I think we'll be fine."

"Yep," said Sonic, setting his rocket launcher down on the floor so that it leaned on a wall. "Damn, wearing the rocket launcher gets tiring after a while."

"Yeah," responded Cody after Rouge finished signing for him. "I can imagine how it feels. I'm going to see what we can eat here."

The others nodded, and Cody disappeared behind a doorway, with a few sounds of cupboards opening and closing following the sound of the door closing.

The hedgehog plopped onto the couch, Tails and Rouge following suit as they all let out a deep sigh of tiredness.

"Man, today was tiring," said Tails after they had plopped onto the couch.

"No kidding," said Rouge. "After that large bit of the horde we ran into, I think we'd all be tired right now."

"Man, I can't believe that I almost killed Cody," said Sonic. "That damn rocket launcher is so hard to aim when you're teetering all over the place. Did I mention I was sorry?"

"Twenty-five times," said Rouge. "Twenty-five times. It's okay; you were inexperienced."

"And my aim wasn't much better," commented Tails as he looked up at the ceiling. "Man, it's hard to aim a gun even with a ten-minute aiming crash course."

"I know," said Rouge. "But we had no other options. So there you go."

The other two nodded, Sonic pulling the photograph of him and Sally again and admiring it as he sat on the couch.

The bat that was sitting next to him perked her ears up, and then looked at what Sonic was looking at, noticing the chipmunk in the picture looking a little familiar.

"What're you looking at?" asked Rouge.

"Oh, this?" asked Sonic, turning to face the agent and patting the picture with his fingers. "This is my girlfriend Sally. She's the president's daughter, actually, but she's a sweet gal. She's also rather funny, if I must say so myself."

"Sally Acorn?" asked Rouge, a bit of surprise showing on his face.

"Yeah, Sally Acorn," said the hedgehog. "What's it to you?"

"Are you kidding me?" asked Rouge. "You're dating my employer's daughter!"

Both hedgehog and fox sent confused stares flying in Rouge's direction, the bat looking both ways as she confronted the stares.

"What do you mean?" asked Tails.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Rouge, looking down at the floor and sighing. "I should have told you that I'm a government agent."

"Oh," said Sonic. "Well, that makes perfect sense. So what were you here for?"

"I was investigating the Zodiac Chemical and Medication Company," said Rouge. "There was some shady activity going around there, and they had to send me in after the first agent they sent down here disappeared."

"Really?" asked Tails. "You know that I had turned in a security update last Monday, right?"

The bat turned to face the fox incredulously.

"You?" asked Rouge. "You know programming languages?"

"Yep!" said Tails. "But anyway, that's off topic. Did you find out what was going on?"

"That's the reason we're in this mess right now," said Rouge. "I found out that the president of the company was trying to create a cure for death."

"What?" asked the fox, leaning forward with disbelief flying in his eyes.

There was a short silence following Tails' bewildered statement.

Finally, Sonic stood up and faced Rouge.

"Wait, so let me get this straight," said Sonic. "You found out that some crazed scientist was trying to create a cure for death so he could market it?"

"Yes," said Rouge. "And then things went wrong, and when I went over there on Tuesday morning we found that there was so much death around us."

"And did this guy know that they would be revived, but without a soul to make them what they once were?" asked the hedgehog.

"I don't think he thought about that," said Rouge.

The hedgehog nodded, and raised his finger in the air.

"Right," said Sonic.

"Did you ever find out what happened to the agent?" asked Tails.

"She was one of the subjects of that God-forsaken experiment," said Rouge, shaking her head a little. "Oh, man, it was a gruesome sight."

"Ouch," said Sonic. "I can imagine. And now, here we are, running for our lives in an infested city because of one guy's experiment. Have I got that right?"

"Pretty much," said Rouge. "Only, I'm partly responsible for all this as well."

All eyes fell on Rouge.

"What?" yelled the other two people in the room simultaneously.

"I tried to get evidence to prove my point," said Rouge. "But I got confused by what was being said when I hacked into the computer to retrieve an example. And then, one thing led to another, and the cure was released into the air with the subjects also being released."

Sonic's expression softened a little, Tails losing his death grip on the pillow he sat on as they both understood what she said.

Her eyes averted to the floor when she took a pause in her speech.

"Every last one of them," she continued. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to do to make amends with you guys."

"Hey, don't worry about it," said the hedgehog, patting Rouge on the shoulder as he walked so that he was behind the woman. "You saved our lives; that's more than enough to make amends with us. Right, Tails?"

"Right!" said Tails, raising a fist into the air.

"Thank you guys," said Rouge, smiling a little. "You've been great company for me and Cody."

The other two nodded, and Sonic sat back on the couch, the three of them remaining silent for a short amount of time.

"Dinner's ready!" boomed Cody's voice from inside the kitchen.

All three jumped at the sound of Cody's voice, and they nodded and entered the kitchen, a newfound trust growing in the group.


	10. Chapter 9

Hello, children.

_Carmina Burana_ was on Thursday. Let me tell you something; it went a lot better than I thought it would be. It really sounded good, and I am perfectly satisfied with the result.

And I'm sorry to everybody out there, but somebody dies in this chapter. I'm not going to say exactly who dies, but a lot of you won't be happy with the results. Therefore, you've been warned.

You know the rest. Here's the chapter, and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 9

**Sunday, July 18**

**12:57 P****.M.**

Jet walked forward, his companion following rather closely behind. The streets were still barren of any visible sight of the horde, and there was still hope even though Shadow had the stench of rotting corpses wafting in his nose.

Still, they walked forward with a relatively calm demeanor surrounding their movements, Jet occasionally casting glances back at the hedgehog.

They eventually sat down on the stairway of a rather ancient-looking building that lay six blocks from where they had left several days earlier, and Shadow looked back at the building that they had stopped in front of.

Upon noticing that Shadow's expression softened a little into a depressed expression, Jet leaned forward.

"Somethin' up?" asked the hawk.

The hedgehog seemed taken by surprise by Jet's question, but he looked at the hawk.

"We're in front of the museum of natural history…" said Shadow.

"And why's it important to you?" asked Jet.

"Because it was Knuckles' favorite date location when we were together…" responded the hedgehog.

The hawk nodded.

"Oh," said Jet. "I'm sorry to have brought that up…"

"Don't worry about it," responded the hedgehog as he inched closer to the hawk. "It actually feels good to talk about it."

"Why'd you say that?" asked Jet.

"Knuckles always told me that somewhere deep within my mind, I also thought this was a great place for dating," responded the hedgehog. "And since we're here now, well, you never know what could happen."

"Wait, are you tryin' to hit on me?" asked Jet.

"What?" asked Shadow. "No! That's not what I meant! It's just…"

The hedgehog sighed, trying to get his wording together. After a few seconds, he opened his mouth.

"What if we stuck around in this hell hole long enough to fall in love?"

"Dude, you really need to slow down," said the hawk. "I know that we're both gay and shit, but I'm the kind that goes slow."

"And I respect that," said Shadow. "But still, what if we did wind up falling in love and coming back to the museum by coincidence? It would be a sort of first date, right?"

"I guess you're right," responded the hawk. "Still, let's not get it on as soon as we enter the building, 'kay?"

The hedgehog immediately tensed, though, and he abruptly stood up.

"Shadow?" asked Jet, standing up as well.

"The horde," said Shadow. "It's here."

And indeed, a massive group of decomposed individuals began to march on the museum towards Jet and Shadow.

And there were nothing but zombies; when Jet turned his head to find an opening, the only other two nearby ways out of there were infested with zombies. There were zombies everywhere on the streets, which meant that the only option for escape was the natural history museum.

"Crap," said Jet. "I guess we have no option."

Jet turned and ran up the steps, Shadow following suit as they ran into the museum.

* * *

**3:35 P.M.**

Jet and Shadow had somehow managed to climb up a tyrannosaur skeleton in the three hours that they had since they had gotten there. The two of them had eaten, drunk, and found some Neolithic tools in the museum that could be used as close range weapons in case the zombies got too close for comfort.

They were actually rather high up in the skeleton; the two of them had somehow gotten into the dinosaur's ribcage without sending the entire setup crumbling down to the floor. They were pretty sure the rest of the dinosaurs in the room didn't mind the intrusion, though, so they stayed in the ribcage where they would be safe until the horde arrived.

Jet was busy taking a nap in the ribcage, the ammunition bag resting on his shoulder and the handgun resting on his stomach as he slept peacefully. His facial features had relaxed for the first time in days, and he looked rather peaceful sleeping there.

Shadow watched the teen sleep, gaze cast on the steady rise and fall of his shoulders as he slept. The hedgehog cracked a smile as the hawk slept in the protective bones, feeling at home with Jet inside what they hoped would be their bed for the next few nights.

The zombies were not far from Shadow's mind, though; they still had not made it past the turnstiles or the windows, and even though they were on the third floor of the building the detestable groaning was still reverberating around the halls with a constant murmur that would annoy some people greatly. Shadow reasoned that they had yet to get into the building, so they were safe then.

But for that moment in time, Shadow's attention was fixed on Jet as he napped amidst the afternoon sun.

* * *

**5:17 P.M.**

Sonic held on to the rocket launcher as he walked behind Rouge, Cody, and Tails.

It was still a beautiful day, the sun casting a brilliance on the city as it slowly began to set, pinks and reds becoming one in the sky as the sun dipped below the horizon.

They had not been having a good day. They had run into small pieces of the horde, and they had narrowly gotten out of each small situation alive. The four of them had grime all over their fur from the firepower they had put into defeating the horde, and they were in no mood whatsoever for anything else.

Nothing was said between the group as they walked. And really, there was nothing that needed to be said; they were tired, they were hungry, they were thirsty, and there was really nothing they wanted to talk about anyway.

Eventually, though, somebody had to talk, so the hedgehog took it upon himself to open his mouth.

"So, those were some crazy people in the horde today, right?" asked Sonic. Rouge jumping up in surprise.

"Sonic, we don't need to know," said Rouge. "We can do a lot better than this."

"You sure about that?" asked the hedgehog.

"How many people are there in that horde anyway?" asked Tails, Rouge just now beginning to sign everything for Cody.

"I don't know," said Rouge. "There's a population of six million in the city, and that's not counting the people that were already lying in their graves. So it's hard to gauge just how much of the horde there is left to go."

"So, basically, we have a lot of zombies to kill," said Sonic.

"Yes," said Cody sardonically. "That should be pretty damn obvious, too."

"Relax!" said Sonic. "We all know it; I'm just wondering exactly how many left there are."

"Sonic, please," said Tails. "We don't have time for this."

Rouge froze quite suddenly in front of an alleyway.

"Shit," said the bat, signing along. "I can smell the horde. And it's pretty damn close, too."

Sonic looked into the alleyway, figuring it would be a great chance to get them a strategic vantage point.

"Quick!" said the hedgehog. "In the alleyway!"

The group ran into the alley, where it turned out that they could make a right turn deeper into it. When they reached the end of it, they found a discarded mattress and some sheets that looked like they had not been used for over a week. There was also a table pretty close to the center of the alleyway, so it did indeed provide a strategic vantage point for them.

"Finally, we can be sure of staying alive here," said Cody. "Sheesh."

The group readied their weapons and waited, Tails and Rouge camping out behind the table with Sonic and Cody on top of it.

Finally, the mass of decaying flesh appeared in the alleyway in a constant march towards the group.

"Fire!" shouted the dog.

Sonic sent a rocket launcher blast flying at the group that severed the head off of one zombie and exploded on the abdomen of another zombie. The blast sent some zombies flying from this point, but the horde was still pouring in.

Rouge and Tails opened fire soon afterward, the table shifting from the force of Tails not getting a good footing to protect himself from the blasts. Cody opened fire as well, the hedgehog taking a rocket from within their ammunition stock and loading another round into the gun.

When Sonic lifted the rocket launcher again, the horde was beginning to get closer to them, so Sonic frantically pulled the trigger without aiming, the shot somehow getting to the center of the horde and sending more zombies flying.

However, the zombies kept on coming in, and they inched ever so closer to the table with their detestable moaning.

"Shit…" said Cody. "Alamo! Alamo!"

The Alamo was, of course, the mattress, and everybody got from behind the table and ran to the mattress, lifting it up as to form a defense between themselves and the horde, the members taking turns firing from behind the mattress at both sides as the horde began to fall dead.

Eventually, the horde had begun to die in size, but there were still plenty of zombies coming in from the end of the alleyway. The group of survivors had to shove the mattress ahead of them at points to shove the zombies back.

There passed a point where the zombies were far enough away that the mattress could be discarded, so they did this and stood to face the enemy, Sonic standing on the edge of the mattress closer to the horde as the rest of the group ducked behind it.

However, the horde got closer to the survivors again, and then the rest of the group tried to erect the mattress with Sonic still loading a rocket into his launcher.

This proved to be a mistake, for nobody said anything as they grabbed the edge of the mattress. Thus, Sonic was sent tumbling in front of the mattress, dropping the rocket launcher as he tumbled forward.

The rest of the group realized their mistake all to late when Sonic yelled an obscenity from the other side of the mattress, but they still had to take turns firing, Sonic desperately dodging each member of the horde as he tried to find the rocket launcher amidst the bodies that were steadily being shot.

Eventually, over the course of five minutes of this activity, the horde had thinned to three zombies, all of them hovering in front of Sonic. They were very close, and it was the one break in the action where everybody was loading.

This gave the zombies enough time to attempt to attack Sonic. However, two of them were finished after Rouge was finished reloading.

The third was killed by Tails, but the head of the zombie was already clamped on Sonic's leg, and the hedgehog screamed in pain.

Cody stepped out from behind the mattress, Tails and Rouge doing the same after they peeked out.

"Well, that's the horde," said Cody. "Jesus Christ, that was a lot of ammunition."

"You're telling me," said Rouge.

Sonic then tried to step out of the zombie's mouth only to find that bite marks were embedded in his skin.

The rest of the group noticed as well, but they dismissed it.

"So, Sonic, are you getting up now or not?" asked Tails.

Sonic looked at his leg with shock riddled all over his face. His frame began to shiver a little, his breath coming in heavily as some realization dawned on him.

"Sonic?" asked Cody.

The shock on the hedgehog's face remained when he turned to Cody, after which he mumbled something.

"What?" asked Rouge. "I can't sign for him if you don't speak up."

"Kill me…" said the hedgehog, more audibly this time.

The rest of the survivors were surprised by this proposal from the hedgehog.

"Kill you?" asked Tails. "Why?"

"Kill me, god damn it!" shouted the hedgehog, grabbing the collar of Cody's security uniform and shaking it with all his might. "Don't you get it? I'm going to be one of them!"

"What are you—?" asked Rouge.

But then, the realization dawned on her.

Most of the people that were alive when the horde first formed were bitten by the zombies and turned into zombies themselves.

True, the virus was in the air, but by then she figured that it must have been depleted bringing the people in the graves back to life. So that left the question of how there were so few survivors in a city that was inhabited by six million people.

And Rouge realized that the half-eaten corpses had been eaten not by worms, but by zombies.

The bat frantically signed everything that Sonic had told Cody to do, and the dog stepped backwards, taken aback by the request.

"No!" shouted Tails, the realization dawning on him too. "You can't die! You're my older brother."

"I know that!" shouted Sonic. "I have too much going for me, damn it!"

"Then why are you asking to die?" asked Rouge.

"Because I don't want to hurt Tails!" shouted Sonic, the tears beginning to form as he yelled. "He's everything to me, and I don't want to hurt him because I got turned into a zombie! Kill me, god damn it!"

There was silence as the words sunk in, Rouge signing what the hedgehog was saying.

Finally, the dog nodded, and held out his hand for the bat, who handed him her handgun.

"Well, if you want it, then you got it," said Cody.

"Wait!" shouted Tails, jumping next to Sonic before Cody was able to step forward.

"What?" asked the dog irritably.

"I don't want him dead!" shouted the fox. "He can't die! This is a dream, right? I'm dreaming, I tell you! I'm dreaming!"

"I wish we were, Tails…" said Sonic, patting the fox's head.

"Indeed," said Cody, looking attentively at what Rouge was signing. "Now, if you would leave us to—"

"No!" shouted the fox, arms wrapping around the hedgehog. "Please! Give me some time with him! Alone!"

"Why?" shouted Rouge. "You have to get away! He doesn't want to hurt you! Why do you want to delay the inevitable?"

There was a profound silence as the fox's gaze aimed towards the ground.

"I want…" began the fox, choking on his words as the tears began to roll down his cheeks. "I want… to tell him… everything… I never told him…"

Tails' profound words moved Cody after Rouge finished signing them slowly, the scene remaining quite still for a few seconds.

The dog nodded.

"Of course," said Cody. "You have the right to do so. Very well then."

Cody took Rouge's hand, placing the handgun on the tabletop.

"We'll give you an hour," said Cody. "We'll be back in exactly one hour."

The fox nodded, and Cody walked out, leading his girlfriend by the hand as Tails looked up at his older brother.

The next hour played out much like a painting to the two of them; two boys hugging each other with tears slowly climbing down their cheeks, the two of them exchanging words under their breath of all the troubles they had never dared to relate to each other before the end of the older one's life. Their eyes remained closed for basically the entire hour, neither daring to open them, praying that it was a dream and that they really would be back into the swing of a normal life as soon as they had entered it.

Finally, the hour expired, and the young fox heard Cody's footsteps as he walked back into the alleyway.

Tails finally parted from the hedgehog, the hedgehog remaining in a kneeling position as the fox stood up.

"Tails, I'd like you to go with Rouge," said Cody. "You probably shouldn't see what I'm going to do next…"

The young fox nodded, but Sonic grabbed his hand quickly.

"Tails?" asked Sonic.

"What is it?" asked the fox.

Sonic removed a locket from the glove on his left hand, handing the golden heart to Tails as the fox took it.

"If you ever see Sally again, give this to her," said the hedgehog. "Tell her that it was to be her birthday present. And if she asks, hold nothing back. This is my last request."

Tails looked at the locket, then at the hedgehog, nodding slowly as he comprehended what he must do.

"It'll be done," said the fox.

The young fox took Rouge's hand, and the bat silently led Tails out of the alleyway, the two of them disappearing around the corner.

The dog then walked over to the hedgehog and knelt next to him.

"You have anything else you want to do before you die?" asked Cody, apparently trying his best not to offend the hedgehog.

Sonic shook his head.

Cody nodded, standing back up and taking the pistol that he had and putting the barrel up against the hedgehog's head.

"Goodbye, lil' bro…" muttered the hedgehog under his breath, the words quivering in his vocal chords as a solitary tear flowed down from his left eye.

The gunshot went off soon afterwards, and the now-dead hedgehog remained still for a moment before he fell to the ground, blood pouring freely from the fatal head wound that would both end the hedgehog's life and keep him from coming back.

The dog looked down at Sonic's still form fighting back the urge to cry. It was part of the job, and yet he could not help but feel the pain of the young fox who had lost his best friend in the city.

Cody walked away from Sonic's body and out of the alleyway.

When he walked out of the alleyway, he saw Rouge and Tails sitting together by a garbage dumpster, the fox crying into the bat's shoulders as she hugged the young fox comfortingly.

The dog realized that they needed time alone, so he stood at the distance from the two of them and watched the young fox mourn the death of his best friend.


	11. Chapter 10

Hello, children!

Sorry for the incredible lateness, but I was off to London for five days, and I left at the start of New Year's Day. That, and I was in a mad rush to get my Christmas fic into the Fire Emblem section before I left, so that left little to no room for this. You should know the rest.

Happy New Year to you all! It's a big year for me, because in 6 months, I graduate from high school. Yeah. It's really very shocking, actually, as I never expected graduation day to be this close to home.

You know the rest. Here's the chapter (once again, apologies for not getting it in sooner), and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 10

**Monday, July 19**

**7:14 A.M.**

Jet had not moved from his position within the ribcage of the tyrannosaur skeleton that he and Shadow had taken refuge in.

However, this time the hawk was awake, with Shadow staring blankly ahead of him.

Jet's stomach had growled continuously throughout the morning, but Jet ignored it; he had experienced greater bouts of hunger, and besides, in the situation they were in it was very dangerous to do so anyway.

The two of them sat in the ribcage, the moans still creating an underscore from far away.

Finally, Shadow cleared his throat.

"Are you sure you are okay?" asked the hedgehog.

"I'm fine," said Jet annoyedly. "I can live it out until they stop beatin' at the door."

"But your stomach is growling a lot," said Shadow. "Perhaps you need something to eat?"

"Again, I'm fine," said Jet. "Really, I am."

Ruby eyes set themselves on the hawk's jade feathers, a stern expression on Shadow's face as he eyed his companion.

"You realize that I will not stop asking until I get a proper answer, right?" asked the hedgehog.

The hawk sighed submissively.

"I don't want the zombies to break in while we eat," said Jet. "I'll be fine, really."

"Better," said the hedgehog.

The sound of a large wooden door falling onto a marble floor was heard from the distance, and the moans that were serving as an undertone suddenly took a forte. Jet's eyes widened as Shadow looked in the direction the sound came from.

"They're here…" said Jet.

At first, nothing happened, but both of the living creatures readied their weapons and aimed them at the entrances, waiting for the horde to arrive.

And then, the decomposed mass was visible, and in the next instant the horde was beginning to file into the room.

The initial gunshots went off, the two companions both working their arms out of the ribcage so they could get a better aim at the horde. Jet had achieved much more expertise with his weapon by the time they had entered the museum thanks to Shadow, so fortunately he did not move much at all.

But even the strength and aim of their firepower was enough. Zombies were dying, but they kept on getting close to the skeleton, their moans gaining a crescendo as they neared.

Over the course of a few minutes, the horde had taken up basically all of the free spaces on the floor of the museum, a few of them at the feet of the tyrannosaur skeleton.

A rather large group of two or three then went up to the legs of the skeleton, and as Jet shot at the horde he felt a shaking sensation on the skeleton.

The hawk looked down to find that the skeleton was being shaken by the horde. No sooner had he seen this than the shaking started getting violent.

"Oh dear," said Jet. "Shadow! I don't think the skeleton will hold!"

The hedgehog paused in his shooting, then looked around, barely noticing a cord suspending the skull in place.

"Quick!" shouted Shadow. "Onto the skull!"

The hawk wasted no time obeying the command; almost instantly and with agility typically found in hawks, Jet weaved his way out of the ribcage, climbed up the ribs and the spinal column, and finally made it to the skull. Shadow did the same thing, the two of them holding on to the chord as the neck broke and the rest of the skeleton fell to the ground with an earth-shattering crash. The crash managed to crush several of the zombies, as well as giving them no really ideas on how to get to them.

Jet realized that the skull could not hold both of their weights, so he scanned the room to see if there was anything within jumping range that he could get on to. His eyes fell on a pterosaur skeleton, suspended in the air by three cords.

It was within jumping distance.

The hawk then swung back and forth on the skull, not pausing in his swinging despite Shadow's protests.

Eventually, Jet had gotten enough momentum from the skull, and so he let go and landed onto the pterosaur skeleton with both feet on the skeleton. No sooner had he stepped on it than he opened fire from his vantage point, zombies falling as he fired.

Shadow was having a slightly more difficult time; the cord was so thin that he literally had to hug the cord to get any kind of a grip. Plus, since the shotgun needed both arms he was having a hard time firing into the crowd. In addition, the shotgun blasts themselves were so powerful that the skull was dangerously swinging this way and that. Shadow found himself colliding with other skeletons in the room from the blasts, and he even found himself sending a few of the skeletons crashing onto the ground as he rocked with his movements.

The horde thinned, but new bodies were constantly walking in, and the bodies began to make a hill of decomposed flesh as they were killed off. The hill maintained a rather small altitude, but the zombies kept on climbing over the hill of dead flesh hoping to get at their prey.

Finally, the cord holding Shadow in the air could not take the weight of Shadow's swinging all over the place; with a loud snap, and with at least ten zombies in the room, the skull fell from the ceiling, Shadow bouncing off the skull and landing on his belly as the skull crushed some of the zombies.

The hedgehog promptly stood up, aiming his shotgun and pulling the trigger to find that he had no more ammunition in the barrel. It was also then that he realized that he had used his last piece of spare ammunition.

As a zombie came close, Shadow swung the butt of the shotgun around, finding that he had no alternatives other than death. After the butt of the shotgun hit the zombie in the head, the hedgehog did the same for another zombie that was headed towards him.

Jet noticed the commotion, and as such he redirected his fire towards the other zombies.

Finally, though, Shadow was backed into a corner, swinging the shotgun fervently and missing quite a bit.

The hawk came pretty close to panicking, and then he fired six consecutive shots at the remaining zombies, losing his balance and falling down several feet into the pile of flesh beneath him as all six shots connected.

When Jet fell into the hill of dead zombies, the last of the horde that was invading the museum died.

The room was a mess; blood littered the walls and the various skeletal fragments that had been thrown about in the chaos, decomposed flesh and occasionally some pieces of decomposed brains sticking to the walls.

However, Shadow did not take the time to look at the scenery, eyes instead widening in fear at the spot where his companion landed.

"Jet!" shouted the hedgehog, running to the spot and kneeling.

After around a second or two of waiting, an arm reached out from the middle of the pile. Then, to Shadow's great relief, the hawk clambered out of the pile, jade feathers soaked in crimson and leaving a few feathers discolored to a subdued shade of yellow. The hawk looked at his companion and groaned, brushing some lint from his feathers that had accumulated from the apparel of some of the horde members.

"Jet, are you okay?" asked Shadow.

"I'm fine," responded Jet. "I think that's all of them."

"Yep," said Shadow, holstering his shotgun on his shoulder. "Thanks for saving me there, by the way."

"Don't sweat it," said the hawk. "Now, we need to get out of here and eat."

"Agreed," said Shadow. "We also need to restock on ammo."

"You can say that again," said the hawk, the ammunition bag puffed up and pretty close to empty on his shoulder. "Let's just hope we don't run into the horde again."

"Yeah," said Shadow. "Let's go."

The two of them walked outside of the hallway and back towards the cruel outside world that was sitting in wait for its victims…

* * *

**1:13 P.M.**

Mighty picked up the revolver from where it was on the table, and then he grabbed Cream's hand.

"Where are we going?" asked the little girl.

"I don't know," said Mighty. "But we better get out of here. I don't know why, but something's telling me we need to get out of here before they find us again."

The apartment was dark and dismal as it had always been, but Mighty had realized that there was no safety in staying in the same place for long in a world where things were constantly moving. Therefore, he had decided that it would be a good idea to get out as soon as possible for the two of them.

Thus, the two of them walked up to the door, Cream looking back.

"Are you sure it's okay?" asked Cream. "I like it here…"

"They're always moving, Cream," said Mighty, eyes directing themselves to the young rabbit as he spoke. "They could find us here. Trust me; I know what I'm doing."

The rabbit nodded nervously.

The armadillo took this as his cue to leave, and so he twisted the knob open and led Cream out of the room by the hand.

* * *

**3:46 P.M.**

Jet grabbed not one, but four bags of extra ammunition that he and Shadow had gotten from the armory.

"Well, that's all the ammunition we'll need," said Shadow. "Come on."

The hawk nodded, but right as they stepped out of the street Jet froze upon noticing how familiar the street to his left was.

The hedgehog noticed, turning to face Jet.

"Is something the matter?" asked Shadow.

"I think I remember…" said Jet.

"What?" asked the hedgehog.

"This is where I got my handgun," said the hawk, walking over to a spot pretty close to the corner and kneeling on the ground. "I don't quite know who left it, but I got it anyways…"

"Did they identify themselves?" asked Shadow, walking up to Jet and leaning on the shop window nearby.

"They left a note," said Jet. "It was written from a 'Mighty and Cream'. I don't know who the hell they are, either. That is the worst part."

"Hm." said Shadow. "You think they're still alive at this point?"

"Yep," said Jet, standing up and facing his companion.

"Then let's go find them," said Shadow. "Maybe survival should not be our first priority right now…"

The hawk looked over at his companion and nodded.

"You're right," said Jet. "Come on. Let's go find them and see what is going on."

The hedgehog nodded, pushing himself off of the shop window.

Before either of them could move any further from the spot, they both stopped, noticing how close together the two of them were standing next to each other, their lips mere inches away from each other.

The hawk blushed underneath his jade feathers, glad for once that nobody could see what was under the plumage.

Shadow sighed, and then he backed away a little.

"I'm sorry," said the hedgehog.

"No, no," said Jet. "It's okay."

The two of them looked at each other, both of them at a loss for words.

Finally, Shadow looked at the street, grudgingly breaking eye contact from his companion.

"We should get going," said the hedgehog. "Come on."

Jet nodded, and he followed his companion silently as the two of them began their search for other survivors.


	12. Chapter 11

Hello, children. I'm back. Again.

I can hardly wait! I'm getting my first M-rated game today! I heard that _No More Heroes_ was really good, so I'm going to check it out. And of course I think I can handle the bloody bits; after all, I am a fan of Happy Tree Friends. I don't think I need to say much else.

I think I'm going to try to start to end this fic within the space of the next few chapters. I only have a few more ideas, and plus, I have a backlist of ideas waiting to be jotted down by me. You know the rest, right?

So let's get down to business here. Here's the next chapter, and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 11

**Tuesday, July 20**

**10:57 A.M.**

Tails looked down at the ground as Rouge led him by the hand down the deserted street.

Poor Tails had needed some time to mourn his friend's death, so Cody decided to take a day to stay put and allow the young fox to grieve. This gave them time to recharge themselves; the past few days had been very taxing for everybody, and really, Tails was taking the loss hard.

But they had gotten moving shortly afterwards, Cody leading the way as Rouge and Tails followed behind.

Finally, Rouge looked down at the fox as she wondered what to say.

"Are you okay there?" asked Rouge.

"I'm fine," said Tails. "I'm just a little tired."

"I think we all are," said Rouge. "There better be other survivors, though."

"You think there will be?" asked Tails.

"Yes," said Rouge. "I have plenty of hope about that. Now let's go."

The fox nodded, and looked forwards.

After a few minutes of walking, though, Tails turned to look at the bat.

"Rouge?" asked Tails.

"Yes?" asked the bat.

"You are a government agent, right?" asked Tails.

"That's right," stated Rouge.

"You can work with manipulating radio waves, right?" asked the fox.

"Yes," said Rouge. "It's all part of the training."

"Then why don't you broadcast a message over all of the AM stations in the city?" asked Tails.

Rouge looked at Tails with a baffled expression on her face.

"But the power is out," stated the bat. "We can't use an AM station!"

"What about battery-powered radios, then?" asked Tails. "Those are very common around here, and if they haven't been used, they should still have power. What's more, most of them have voice recorders. Maybe we could use those on a random AM station and hope that there are other battery-powered radios that are functional?"

Rouge opened her mouth to retort when the realization hit her like a ton of bricks.

"Holy shit," said Rouge, halting in her tracks. "Why didn't we think about it before?"

She ran forward to tell Cody, the young fox running after the agent as her hopes were worked up.

* * *

**2:46 P.M.**

Mighty and Cream had ducked into another apartment building as they dodged the horde that had not noticed their presence yet.

The armadillo had no idea how he was managing it, but neither he nor Cream had been noticed by the horde. It seemed like a miracle to the armadillo, since thankfully the rabbit was not coming under fire from all sides. However, Mighty was all the more nervous as he hoped to keep that trend.

And it had been very hard for him to do so, as there were several close saves where the two of them almost knocked some trash cans over and attracted the horde to them. However, they had somehow managed to avoid being spotted by the horde, and thus the two of them had made it into an apartment building.

The armadillo then looked around and sighed in relief when he found no zombies anywhere. He looked at the front desk, the darkness giving it an air.

He whirled around when he noticed that Cream wasn't tugging at his leg as she usually did when they were in a dark place.

This set Mighty into an array of paranoia. He had lost his friend's child, and now she could have fallen victim.

But the armadillo knew he could not panic just yet. He had to make sure Cream was around first.

"Cream?" asked the armadillo.

"I'm right here," stated the young rabbit from behind the front counter.

Mighty sighed in relief, and he promptly jumped over the front desk to notice that the young rabbit was looking through the key rack to see if there were any keys.

"You scared me there," said Mighty.

Cream looked up at the armadillo, holding something in her hand.

"Mighty," said the little rabbit, handing a circular apparatus to the said individual. "What's this?"

Mighty knelt down and looked it over, and noticed that there was a rather full-bodied glow of blue on one part of it.

It was then that the armadillo realized what it was.

"Oh my god!" said Mighty excitedly.

The armadillo fumbled with the gadget in the darkness, eventually finding a small indent on one side and pressing down on it. As soon as Mighty pressed down on the indent, the space behind the front desk became illuminated with a blue light that showed what time it was and a number saying '1069 AM'. A fizz came of the lack of the radio station broadcasting anything, and Mighty's shoulders slumped in disappointment.

"A battery-powered radio…" said Mighty. "Aw, man!"

"We can't use it?" asked Cream.

"There's no use," said the armadillo, standing up and laying the radio on the desk.

Cream was about to answer a question when the armadillo walked solemnly behind the desk.

As the girl slowly followed, Mighty's ears perked up when suddenly the fizzing stopped.

Cream stopped, confused as to why the armadillo had stopped in his tracks. She moved to ask a question when suddenly the radio's speakers whirred to life.

"If anybody's there, please take a few minutes of your time and listen to this." said a female voice over the speakers.

Mighty immediately whirled around midstep and dashed to the counter, the little girl jumping onto the counter to listen.

"My name is Rouge, and I am broadcasting this message on all AM channels," continued the female voice, a little bit of desperation picking up in her voice. "I know you may think this is incredible, but I am stuck here in Station Square with whoever is picking up this message. If you hear this message, please go to the Grand Midtown Station. I and two other people will be waiting there. If there is anybody out there, please go to the station immediately! We will wait three days for everybody to arrive, and when the three days expire, I will try to contact the government to see what we can do. Please get to the station as soon as possible!"

The broadcast ended, and the fizz opened up again after a few seconds of silence.

The armadillo looked at the little girl, a light shining in both of their eyes.

"Is that…" asked Cream.

"Yes!" said Mighty. "Come on! We have to get to the Grand Midtown Station!"

The armadillo grabbed the rabbit's hand, and bolted out the door, only to realize seconds after he had run outside that the horde was still there as the door slammed shut behind him.

Instantly, the blank eyes faced them, and Cream screamed as Mighty ran as fast as he could.

Somehow, Mighty had managed to weave through the intricate avenues of Station Square while remaining on the path to Grand Midtown Station. He had also lost the horde after a short chase, so he stopped to pant, the little girl he had been running with panting as well.

However, there was no time for rest. For as soon as they had panted for a few minutes, a groan came out of nowhere.

Before either of them could react, a lone zombie had pounced on Mighty, bashing him in the head.

The little girl screamed, and just before the zombie managed to hit Mighty fatally, the armadillo weakly lifted his hand and the revolver went off, the bullet flying into the zombie's head.

But the fist still fell down on Mighty's head, thus ending his life. Even worse, the zombie's mouth clamped down on Mighty's arm after it had fallen.

It had all gone by in the span of seven seconds. The terrified rabbit was cowering on the curb, her hands shielding her eyes as her little frame shivered.

After a few seconds of complete silence, the little girl looked up from her hands to see the zombie and Mighty in a heap on the street.

Slowly, the girl approached the heap on the ground, her eyes beginning to well with tears with each step she took.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of silence, Mighty's body twitched slightly. Cream took a step back, not sure what to do.

And then, Mighty's eyes opened, revealing the same blank eyes as everybody else in the horde.

Just as Mighty began to lift himself from the street, the little girl let out as loud of a scream as she could muster, darting away in the opposite direction as fast as her little legs could carry her.

* * *

**3:02 P.M.**

Shadow and Jet walked forwards, hoping that Grand Midtown Station was somewhere within sight.

They had gotten the radio message several minutes ago while raiding a cupboard at an apartment that was not too far from the unearthed graveyard. Shadow had come upon it while Jet was going for food, and then the two of them both heard the message when Shadow turned it on to see what it was.

"Ya think this is a practical joke or whatever?" asked Jet.

"Jet, it is kind of difficult for people to fake that kind of a stunt," said Shadow. "I mean, nobody could have anticipated this, so how could they have left the message ahead of time? Trust me, man. I think we'll be okay."

"Okay," said the hawk, who continued walking forward. "I still can't chase that thought away, though. It's just so hard to. Ya know?"

"Yes," said Shadow. "It happens to all of us sometimes."

There was a small silence as the two of them walked together, their hands mere inches away from each other, the two of them continuously walking forward as the hope of the message over the battery-powered radio shone as bright as ever.

Finally, Jet took Shadow's hand in his, and the two of them stopped, Shadow blushing slightly under his fur as the hawk looked at him.

"Ya know, you've been the only guy I've known around here lately," said Jet. "And, well, we've been through worse shit than many people've known how to deal with. And I was thinking that maybe if there's anything left… You know…?"

"We could live together?" asked Shadow, the words somehow coming naturally.

"Yeah," said Jet. "Something like that."

Shadow looked pensively at the curb, and after a few seconds of thought his gaze returned to Jet.

"I think I could manage it," said the hedgehog. "But you have to help keep up the apartment."

"Of course," responded the hawk. "I'd be glad to do that!"

"Then it's settled," said the hedgehog. "Just, no stealing, okay?"

"I swear," said the hawk.

The two of them had begun walking forward with their fingers entwined with one another's when suddenly a high-pitched squeal came from behind them.

Jet, having the more sensitive ears of the two, turned around as another squeal came again.

"Is that the horde?" asked Shadow.

"I don't think so," responded Jet. "But whatever it is, the horde wants it dead."

Within seconds after Jet said this, the squeaking eventually turned into squealing which eventually gave way to screaming as suddenly a little rabbit girl appeared turning towards the two of them from the street corner.

Jet perked his eyebrows, but no sooner did he do so when from the same street corner a zombified armadillo followed her.

The hedgehog wasted absolutely no time at all; as the little girl shrieked her heart away, Shadow grabbed his shotgun from his shoulder, aimed, and fired. The shot connected with the creature's head, and the armadillo's life was ended for good as the little girl ran down the street.

The girl would have run past Jet and Shadow had it not been for the fact that Jet caught her just as she approached them. Almost instinctually, the girl started thrashing against Jet's feathers, dirty shoes turning jade feathers a slightly darker shade of green as she thrashed against him.

"Hey! You're okay!" shouted the hawk. "We're not going to hurt you!"

The words worked like a charm. The girl stopped thrashing and looked at her saviors; first at Shadow, and then a long look at Jet.

Nothing was said when she looked at the hawk, however. In fact, the girl's gaze was beginning to bother the hawk slightly.

"Is something the matter?" asked Shadow finally.

"You…" said the little girl. "You were the man who was sleeping on the curb…"

The realization hit Jet with incredible force, but not with enough force that he could not respond.

"You mean in front of the armory, right?" asked Jet.

"Yes!" said the little girl. "You're okay!"

The hawk nodded as the little girl hugged the hawk with bruising force, Jet patting the back of the girl's head lightly.

"So, let me guess," said Jet after nothing was said. "You're Cream."

"That's right, mister!" said Cream.

"Well, if that's true, then where's Mighty?" asked the hawk.

The girl's expression of joy gave way as she looked down at the ground dismally.

"Oh," said Jet.

By this point, Shadow was beginning to get a little impatient with Jet and Cream.

"Um, we're never going to make it to Midtown Station at this rate," said Shadow.

Cream turned to look at Shadow, who looked quite intimidating with his shotgun still in his arms and with a rather annoyed expression on his face.

"Who's this?" asked the little girl eagerly.

The hawk and the hedgehog both felt the sweat run down their cheeks at exactly the same time, both of them looking at the girl.

"Well, uh…" said Jet hesitantly. "This is…"

"A friend," continued the hedgehog. "I'm a friend of his. Pleasure to meet you."

Shadow's sudden congeniality visibly confused the girl a little more, but she dismissed it with a shrug and looked at Jet again.

"Are you going to the station too?" asked the girl.

"Yes," responded the hawk. "In fact, maybe we could all go together. How does that sound?"

"Really?" asked Cream.

"Yep," responded the hawk. "Now come on! We better get moving! We got some people we need to meet!"

"Yay!" exclaimed the little girl, and she skipped merrily before her as the two men looked at each other.

"I owe you way too much, man," said the hawk.

"Just helping me pay the rent for when we finally start living together will do," said Shadow. "Now come on. Let's go."

The hawk nodded, and then the two companions both walked after Cream, a smile gracing both of their lips at Cream's vitality in such a dismal environment.

* * *

**7:53 P.M.**

Cody sat on the staircase at Grand Midtown Station, keeping a lookout over the area surrounding it as the sun slowly began to set behind the buildings.

The group of three had waited all day for the survivors to show up after Rouge managed to send out the message on all AM channels. So far, they were being met with very little success.

But really, they knew they could not lose hope at all; the chance of survivors actually finding battery-powered radios that were still functional was rather slim at best, but they still had a hope to cling to for the sake of their morale. None of them had decided to let go of the little hope that they had for saving anybody else, and so they stuck around for the sake of their own sanity as much as the sake of the lives of any survivors that were still there.

However, the dog knew that enough was enough, so after a moment of not seeing anything he walked back into the safety of the station, where Rouge and Tails were waiting for him.


	13. Chapter 12

Hey, children!

_No More Heroes_ is lots of fun. I'm already about to get the entry fee for the 5th ranking battle. I can barely wait for it! I mean, the boss fights are hard, but they're creative! That's the important part, right? Plus, it's hilarious! I can't help but like games with a quirky sense of humor!

You know what I mean?

Here's the next chapter. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 12

**Thursday, July 22**

**11:23 A.M.**

Rouge walked around nervously inside of the building, Tails and Cody slowly following along as they walked down the stairs into the subway station itself.

The group was investigating the station to see if there was anything there. When Rouge had gone to bed the previous night, she had heard some strange scratching noises emanating from the subway station that was in Grand Midtown Station. The group knew that it was definitely not something good, so they brought their weapons along to investigate what was downstairs.

Of course, Rouge had to steal a few flashlights and some extra batteries since no doubt there would be no light in there. Thankfully, though, they were still able to see something as they walked down to the turnstiles.

They stopped at the turnstiles, remembering that they wouldn't budge.

"Damn turnstiles…" mumbled Cody before jumping over one of them.

Rouge and Tails followed suit and jumped over the turnstiles, Rouge helping Tails over the turnstiles when it was his turn to go over them.

As the three proceeded to the platform, they heard the tell-tale moaning rising up again.

"Oh, dear…" said Rouge, stopping in her tracks.

Her companions halted as well, Cody looking at the platform to look ahead.

Cody looked at the rest of the group, and then he nodded.

They loaded their weapons, Tails turning off his flashlight as he hoisted the rocket launcher he had inherited from Sonic over his shoulders. The group then walked towards the platform.

The section of the horde in the subway did not seem too large; in fact, it was considerably small what with the fact that it was hard to live in such a space. Aside from the fact that it was very dark, the water had risen such that the platform was covered in a very thin blanket of water that was just beginning to spill over. The moans were still present as they walked forwards, but nevertheless the group walked forwards.

And then, the zombies noticed them.

And at the same time, they all went for the small group of survivors.

Tails was the first to fire, sending a rocket launcher into the advancing members of the horde. The shot missed, and suddenly he felt the water that was covering the platform soak his fur as he fell back from the force of the shot. The round exploded on the wall opposite the entrance of the platform, and then Rouge and Cody began to fire at the zombies rapidly.

However, as Tails frantically struggled to get another rocket into the launcher, the horde had by then begun to separate the individuals. While there were not that many, the group of survivors had forgotten that the battle was in pitch blackness, and so they were at a loss there when they were separated.

When Rouge noticed this, she got rid of all of the zombies surrounding her as quickly as possible (which was rather quickly, actually). After the bodies of the five zombies that she killed fell over, she opened fire on Tails' position as he was beginning to yell at the top of his lungs.

She managed to shoot at the zombies that were after Tails, and when Rouge shined her flashlight on the fox he was able to reload faster.

Cody, meanwhile, was not faring so well. He was just skimming the edge of the platform, and while Rouge was killing the zombies around Tails Cody had nearly fallen into the water in the railway several times. It took quite a bit of care to aim his pistol, and as he was being cornered he had only managed to kill three of the ten zombies that were chasing him.

Finally, though, Tails hoisted the rocket launcher over his shoulders, and then he fired at the group running at the dog.

The shot connected with the subdivision of the group that the survivors had encountered, and the blast went up, lighting the platform.

Since the zombies were all in a closely-knit group, they all were killed.

And unfortunately for him, Cody had slipped two and a half seconds before the shot connected, and he was not able to get up.

As the explosion of the rocket lit up the zombies, Rouge could see Cody flying into the subway tunnel, and a loud splash was heard shortly afterwards.

"No!" she yelled as she saw this. "Cody!"

The fox blinked as Rouge ran after Cody's form as it was blown away by the explosion. When he realized why the bat was yelling at the top of her lungs, Tails slapped himself mentally.

The bat had slipped as she ran, and after she slipped she slid straight into the subway tunnel after him, flashlight somehow not getting into the water.

After she was in the tunnel, she frantically swam around, muttering her boyfriend's name over and over again as she scanned the water for any signs of Cody. She didn't care for one second that her white fur was beginning to get full of muddy water; all she cared about was Cody.

And after a minute of searching, Rouge gasped in horror.

For there, laying so that his arms were parallel to the rails on either side of him, was Cody.

His lower half was in incredibly bad shape, and his left foot had been blown off from the force of the blast. He was also a bloody mess from the waist up as well, but this was hard to tell since the blood had already dissolved into the water.

Rouge shook her head, the tears coming down her cheeks as she lowered the pistol into the water, aiming at her boyfriend's head.

The shot was dampened by the water, and Rouge remained in the water, gasping for air over and over again in her terror.

Finally, she decided it was time to leave, and so she swam back to the platform where she saw Tails standing at the edge of the platform, hoping for good news.

When Rouge got to the edge of the platform empty-handed, though, his expression dropped.

"He's gone?" asked the fox.

The bat nodded as she got into a sitting position at the edge of the platform, hugging Tails to her wet form.

Neither of them said anything for a while.

Finally, Tails couldn't help but feel the worst guilty pang ever.

"You…" said Tails, choking on his words a little. "You're not… going to kill me… are you? I didn't mean to…"

Rouge only hugged the fox closer to her.

"No," she replied, sniffling a little as she cried. "You're… You're the only… companion… I have left…"

And without any further words, the two of them remained at the edge of the platform, mourning Cody's death.

* * *

**4:13 P.M.**

Shadow opened the door to Grand Midtown station, Jet and Cream going inside with the hedgehog following soon after.

"Well, here we are…" said Jet.

There was silence. In the expanse of the great room that they had entered, there was nobody. Nothing stood close to the peach walls that towered over the group of survivors.

The station stood in its majesty, but without people there to tend to it. There were several shops off to the side, and on one side there was another set of doors that led into the building. The dome was covered with a fresco depicting angels in flight, and in the center lay a giant clock never to see it's hand turning again.

When no movement was made, Jet stepped forward.

"Hello?" he shouted, his voice echoing off the walls. "Is anybody here?"

There was a silence after this. Shadow walked up to Jet, Cream following closely behind.

"And it's not a prank," said the hedgehog.

"Then let's wait," said Jet. "They're probably off somewhere else."

Not a second too soon after the hawk said this, the doors on the other side opened, and almost immediately Cream jumped behind the hedgehog. When the rabbit jumped, Shadow and Jet grabbed their weapons, aiming at whatever had gone through the doors.

However, when they were ready to fire, they hesitated.

From the other side of the room, a female bat stood, fur wet and matted with stained make-up. Clinging to her leg was a young fox with two tails, and he also had soaked fur.

Both of them were very much alive.

After a few tense seconds, the two men lowered their weapons, Cream coming forward from behind Shadow.

"You must be Rouge," said Shadow, walking forwards to meet the other two survivors that they had run into.

"I am," said the bat, walking forwards. "So there were indeed other people in the city with us."

"Yep," said Jet, walking forward and extending his hand to Rouge. "The name's Jet. The hedgehog is Shadow, and the rabbit is Cream."

The bat looked hesitantly at the hand, and after a second of thinking she took the hand in hers and shook it.

"And the fox is…?" asked Shadow.

"Tails is the name," said the fox.

"Where were you people?" asked Cream. "We just got here, and we didn't see you…"

"We were off…" said Rouge. "Burying a lost friend."

"Oh," stated Jet. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," said Rouge. "It's not your fault."

"Well, at least let us offer our condolences," said Shadow.

"Thank you…" said Rouge, sniffling a little. "Your condolences are greatly appreciated…"

"So, now that we're here, we wait for another day, right?" asked Jet.

"Yes," said Rouge. "That AM radio idea worked, I guess…"

"Hey!" shouted Tails. "If it worked in _I Am Legend_, it can work here!"

Jet perked his head to the side in confusion, Shadow and Cream sending confused stares at the young fox. When Tails noticed this he shrugged.

"What?" asked Tails. "Don't you know your old movies?"

"I don't watch old flicks like that anymore," stated Jet. "Sorry."

"And I never saw it, I swear," said the hedgehog.

"What is _I Am Legend_?" asked Cream.

Tails smacked himself with the face with his palm.

"Come on!" shouted Tails. "Don't tell me you haven't seen the greatest zombie film of all time!"

"Nope…" said the three individuals at the same time.

"But that's not the point, now, is it?" asked Rouge. "Next, we have to try the satellite radio…"

"Satellite radio, eh?" asked Jet. "Don't you have a cell phone you can use?"

"No," said Rouge. "I have one, but the battery died yesterday."

"I see," said Shadow. "Let's hope there's a vacant channel on the satellite network."

"Indeed," said Jet. "Let's go get something to eat, shall we?"

"Of course," said the bat.

The group walked to one of the shops, and after going in there was nothing that needed to be said.

* * *

**Friday, July 23**

**11:56**** P.M.**

Shadow and Rouge stood outside of Grand Midtown Station in the dark of the night, holding a pair of flashlights and scanning the area without fail.

Of course, the fact that the moon was shining a bloody red that night helped out in their search, too; it ensured that there was at least some amount of light in the dark.

Cream and Tails had long since gone to bed, with Jet standing guard over them inside one of the shops. This allowed Shadow and Rouge to patrol the outside area without any fears, which meant that survivors would be found faster.

However, after several minutes of waiting Shadow knew that the wait was useless; the likelihood of any other survivors remaining in the city was very low, and given the fact that nobody had arrived yet he knew that the wait was over.

"Well, I guess we're the only guys left in here," said the hedgehog.

"Yeah," said Rouge. "Let's go…"

The two of them walked back into the building, the flashlights guiding them to the shop where they had left Jet with the children.


	14. Chapter 13

Damn. It's been forever since I've updated this. (And the sad thing is I have something else that's begging for an update.)

So, I got Brawl on Thursday! No, I haven't unlocked Sonic yet, but I'm having a ton of fun with it. And Subspace Emissary... (H.W. drools)

Only problem is, I can never get the god damn Smash Ball whenever it appears! I've gotten it exactly twice; once as Pit during my first Brawl in the game ever, and once as Dedede today. And whenever it appears, I can never get it. It's sad and retarded!

Eh. At least in most cases Final Smashes don't mean instant doom. They also don't mean that the person who gets the ball is the victor, so that's a relief.

What am I rambling about? Here's the chapter, and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 13

**Saturday, July 24**

**10:52 A.M.**

"All right. Here's a spare computer chip."

"Good. I think that's all I'll need."

Tails handed Rouge the spare computer chip, and from there Rouge took up her screwdriver and got to work prying the wireless radio open.

The group had barricaded the entrance of the hardware store in Grand Midtown Station with a huge desk, and they had proceeded to put black sheets over all of the windows so that none of the zombies in the city would be able to see them in there. Jet had smuggled a trio of kerosene lanterns from another shop just before they barricaded the door, and they had enough food and water in there to last them for as long as the small group needed.

Right then, it was a matter of getting communications to a satellite radio network so that they could get some help from the military. They had just tested a brand new cell phone from the shop across the corner, and on finding that there was no reception at all, they decided that the satellite radio was the only thing they could use after all.

And so, they were all huddled around Rouge, the lanterns lighting the dark space inside the shop as Rouge pried the communicator open with a screwdriver and got to work.

"Are ya sure this is goin' to work?" asked Jet. "I mean, we don't know how to get onto a channel once we get there."

"We'll figure that out when we get there," replied the bat, her expression unchanging as she went to work. "And if all else fails, we have Tails."

"Hey!" said Cream innocently. "That rhymed!"

Shadow rolled his eyes in an annoyed gesture, the bat sighing and returning to work.

"You know she can't concentrate if you keep talking, right?" asked Shadow.

"You're not helping much either, Shadow," stated the bat matter-of-factly as she continued to work.

And as such, there was complete silence as the bat worked on the communicator.

After a few minutes of fiddling with the device, Rouge looked up.

"Masking tape?" asked the bat.

The hawk looked over by one of the kerosene lamps to see the roll of masking tape that he had procured the day before. His hand went over there and gave the roll to Rouge.

"Check," he said, handing it to her.

The bat grabbed the roll, pulled out a small amount, and bit down with one of her fangs to separate the tape from the roll. She then applied the tape to the device, and then she pushed the power button on to see what she could do.

"So you have the implant now?" asked Shadow.

"Yes," said Rouge. "This could take a couple of hours."

The other members of the group nodded as Rouge turned her head to the typewriter that she had plugged into the communicator.

She then got to work, the clacking of keys starting with a determined drive in its pace.

**1:26 P.M.**

"So, any progress?" asked Shadow.

"No, damn it!" shouted Rouge, pounding her fist on the floor with such force that Jet had to steady one of the kerosene lamps to keep it from falling over.

The group had stood where they were for all the time that Rouge was hacking into the satellite radio network. The bat had managed to hack into the database of the network that Rouge knew was a station that the President of Knothole listened to often, but she was unable to hack her way to a program that could record the communicator. As the communicator's screen shone brilliant white light in an otherwise dark room, Rouge could not comprehend the lines of code that were before her.

And she was showing frustration; for the past hour she had been struggling with the code on the communicator, typing away at the keyboard that they had acquired for her use, and yet she was getting nowhere with figuring out the code. Tails had asked several times if he could hack through the program, but Rouge refused his help every time he had offered.

However, the bat was at the point where she knew that she had tried everything, so she knew that eventually the two-tailed fox would have to look at it.

Finally, after typing a few things and getting nowhere, she sighed and stood up.

"I can't hack into it…" said Rouge. "Tails, you take over for now."

"All right!" said Tails. "Time to test that trick!"

"Trick?" asked Jet as the young fox took his seat.

"Well, to write a good security program, you have to know all the stops that a hacker can pull to get into a program," said Tails. "So, I knew a hacker for two years, maybe, and he told me many tricks."

"Right…" said Jet. "You know that it might not get you anywhere, right?"

"Yeah," responded the young fox. "But it's still worth a try."

The hawk nodded simply as Tails began typing.

Within a few minutes, Tails stopped typing.

"I think we're on to something!" said the fox gleefully.

"You are?" asked Cream. "Great!"

"Cream, please…" said Shadow as he, Jet, and Rouge all walked closer to the communicator.

The clacking of keys in the store continued for quite some time.

"I think I'm almost there…" said Tails, squinting a little as he continued typing.

And then, a beep from the communicator sounded, and a red light was next to the word 'REC'.

"Are… Are we on...?" asked Cream when she saw this.

"I don't know…" said Jet.

"I think we are…" said Tails.

"We are?" asked Rouge.

"Probably," said Shadow. "But we should hurry."

"Right…" said the bat, clearing her throat after she said this.

And then, she delivered the same speech she had delivered through the AM broadcast a few days earlier, except with a few major tweaks to accommodate for the fact that they were broadcasting to the entire world. As she went through the familiar inflections of the voice, though, her ears picked up the familiar moaning, and then her speech got uneasy.

And as soon as she finished the final word of her speech, she tensed up.

"They're here…" she said. "Everybody be quiet…"

And there was silence as nobody dared to move a muscle. Not even Cream moved anything as the familiar moans came within hearing range. After an interval of three hours, however, the moaning finally died down, and Rouge let out a deep breath.

"Are we still on?" asked Rouge.

"No…" said Shadow, who had kept watch on the communicator the entire three hours. "The battery died half an hour ago."

"Aw…" said Jet. "I was wondering if I could say something to mom…"

"Well, that's probably enough time for them to track it to here…" said Tails. "In other words, we should get out of here soon."

"Yeah," said Cream.

And Rouge nodded, pleased at how events had turned out for them.

**4:53 P.M.**

The group had just left Grand Midtown Station.

There was nothing else for them to do in there. They had to get a new communicator since the old one's battery had died, but other than that they were done with it.

As Jet stepped outside, he looked around, noticing how eerily empty the streets seemed.

And that was the moment he realized that he had never noticed how empty the streets were. He used to steal around the area all the time, and yet he had always taken for granted that the only reason he went there was because of the abundance of people that were running about this way and that for appointments and such. He had gotten very good at picking pockets from the area around Grand Midtown Station because it was so crowded.

It made him do a double take when he realized that he had never noticed the empty silence.

"Um, guys…?" asked Jet, continuing to walk. "Do ya feel like the silence is… weird?"

"Now that you mention it…" said Shadow.

"No?" asked Rouge.

"Something like that, yes," responded the hedgehog. "Man, it's strange knowing what thinking only of survival does to your brain…"

"You're telling me…" said Jet. "I actually miss society right now, and that's something I never thought would happen…"

"We're really messed up in the head right now…" joked Rouge, chuckling a little.

"In a way, yes," said Shadow. "I think we better move it now. At this rate, Cream and Tails will leave us here to fend for ourselves."

"Then we'll just have ta catch them," said Jet. "Hey! Kids! Wait for us!"

And when Jet pretended to trip and fall flat on his face over a grate in the road, Shadow and Rouge actually laughed for the first time in ages, the hawk joining them four seconds into it. They kept on laughing, even as the children approached them from the direction they had been walking in.


	15. Chapter 14

Hello, everybody! How are you on this fine day?

So, I'm getting close to the end of this, so I'll go ahead and rush through the rest of this sucker so that I can move on to some other things. Sorry, but this won't be continued on after I end it, so you know the rest.

And yes, when I say the fic is going to end soon, I mean it. Run for the hills.

But anyways, that won't be for another two chapters and an epilogue, so you don't have to go running around screaming like little girls. And this chapter is not one of the final ones.

So there you have it. Here's the next chapter, and enjoy!

Chapter 14

**Sunday, July 25**

**7:56 A.M.**

Rouge grabbed a final cartridge, putting it in a bag as she prepared to leave.

The group had passed the armory that they found they had always been using to restock their equipment, but upon finding that its shelves had been emptied due to their activities, they had gone on a foxhunt for another armory, finally finding one just as the sun set. They stayed at the armory overnight, being careful to barricade the doors in a way that the horde could not get to them from anywhere.

And when they woke up the next morning, they decided to restock on equipment. The bazooka that Tails had been carrying was ditched; Rouge, Shadow, and Jet all agreed that it was way too dangerous a weapon to carry around. Instead, they gave Tails a handgun, Cream still being the one to hold all of the group's extra ammunition.

Rouge also decided to swap out the handgun that she had been using the entire time, opting instead for a semi-automatic machine gun. Shadow and Jet were still not sure why she had decided to change her weapon, but they let her be; after all, it did have rapid-fire capabilities, so they could not have possibly gone wrong by allowing her to take the semi-automatic rifle.

Shadow and Jet had opted not to change their weapons, though it was more because they were familiar with the guns they had than anything else. So they decided to get lots of extra ammunition while they were at it.

And overall, they figured they would have plenty of ammunition to haul themselves over.

After Rouge grabbed the cartridge, she joined the others at the door as she popped the cartridge into the semi-automatic rifle.

"You guys ready?" asked Rouge, looking at the group. She felt that Tails' new handgun fit him more than the bazooka ever could mostly because of the fact that it was much smaller and easier to handle. Cream seemed a little bogged down, but everybody had agreed to take at least one bag of ammunition on their shoulders to lessen the load on the little girl's shoulders, so she was all right after all.

Everybody nodded in response to the question.

"All right then," said Rouge. "Let's go out there and see where we can be safe at."

Shadow stepped outside first, followed by Jet and the children, Rouge bringing up the rear as they began their trek for a safe place within the city.

**

* * *

**

12:07 A.M.

The group stood in front of a random building. There was really nothing special about it; it, too, was deteriorating rather quickly. They knew there was no use in staying in such a place, so they looked at each other and nodded in an unsaid agreement against going in there.

"Are we ever going to find somewhere?" asked Cream. "We've been doing this all day!"

"Hopefully," said Jet. "Hopefully."

They had scanned apartment buildings since they had left the armory, and so far they had met with very little success. Almost every building had by then deteriorated in some way or another, and every time they had to leave to find another place to stay.

Everybody was getting annoyed by it; Shadow and Jet were annoyed because they were both feeling very hot amidst the sun, Rouge was annoyed because there was always something wrong with the buildings when they found them, Tails was annoyed for the same reasons Rouge was annoyed, and Cream was annoyed because it was taking too long. They all knew that they would have to keep looking, but it was a rather futile quest.

So they walked to the next building on the block to find it in pretty much the same fashion. They nodded, and moved on.

At the next building, they nodded and moved on as well.

It was a very tedious cycle, and unfortunately for them they were not sure if it could be broken.

Finally, though, the group stopped in front of a brick building that seemed to be in pretty decent shape. The exterior seemed to be the victim of an unfinished paint job, but otherwise there were no signs of the building deteriorating.

The group took one look at it, and then they looked back at each other.

"This is the place," said Jet.

"Indeed," said Rouge.

The group stepped inside to find a rather neat lobby area with some furniture toppled over. They rather quickly plopped into the furniture that was still upright as Jet leapt over the front desk and started looking for the keys to the apartments.

After a few seconds, the hawk emerged with two keys.

"Hey, Rouge!" said Jet upon exiting. "Heads up!"

Rouge turned to Jet, who then proceeded to toss a room key to the bat. She caught it in midair, and read the room number quickly.

"So who's staying with who?" asked Rouge.

"Jet and I will be in one room," said Shadow. "You and the kids will be in the other."

"And they're right next ta each other," said Jet. "No worries."

"Okay," said Rouge. "I guess now all we have to do is wait."

"Yeah," said Tails. "We should probably get off the ground floor.

The adults of the group nodded, and they proceeded to walk up the stairs, Cream and Tails following them on their trek up the stairs.

**

* * *

**

1:00 P.M.

Jet sat on the bed, getting an opportunity to stretch out his arms as he sat. Shadow stood rather close to the hawk, keeping his eyes on the hawk out of concern for his being.

"Man," said Jet. "It feels great ta relax a little."

"You're telling me," said Shadow. "Now all we need to do is take turns waiting outside and we'll be fine."

"Yeah," said the hawk as the hedgehog sat in the bed next to him. "It'll feel pretty damn weird, getting' back into a normal life."

"Why do you say that?" asked Shadow.

"Because I've been stealing shit for the past two years," replied Jet. "I'd think it'd be hard to get away from _that_ just by returning home."

"Ah," said the hedgehog. "I see."

"Who knows?" asked the hawk. "I might even wind up in jail when I get back. I might not have anyone to help me. What do I do then?"

"You'll have me," said Shadow. "I've been here; I'd gladly be there for you later."

"Shadow, you're too good…" said Jet, his face mere inches away from that of Shadow's.

"I know," replied Shadow after a chuckle escaped his lips.

And a few seconds after that, Shadow closed the distance between his lips and Jet's beak, planting a rather chaste kiss on Jet's lips that the hawk was only glad to return.

As the hawk wrapped his wings around Shadow, the two of them found themselves lying on the bed, and as their chaste kiss turned into a fervent kiss, the hedgehog's hand snaked down Jet's body, eventually arriving at his bottom and giving it a firm squeeze.

This surprised the hawk greatly, and he let out a soft cry as his body jerked up, his beak momentarily breaking a kiss as Shadow suddenly moved on to kissing the hawk's neck.

* * *

**5:36 P.M.**

Cream, Tails, and Rouge all sat on the bed, a game board laid out on the bed as they all took turns rolling die.

Ever since they had entered the room, the three had been engaged in a game of _Monopoly_ that was not looking to end anytime soon. The group was going all out, and despite the fact that Cream was losing do to her financial ineptitude, they were all having a little fun bonding over a board game that they had found stowed under the bed.

Tails had just rolled a die, and with his move he had passed Go.

"All right!" he said. "That'll be another 200 dollars for me!"

"Okay," said Rouge, going through the bank of paper money that laid in the plastic tray. "Here you go…"

She pulled out 200 dollars of toy money, which Tails only gladly took.

"Thanks!" said Tails.

"So, Cream, how did you wind up here?" asked Rouge as she took the dice and rolled them. "I mean you said your mother wasn't here, so…"

"Oh, daddy needs to calm down," said Cream. "Mommy says that he was doing something he shouldn't have been, and that he got sent to a special place for it."

"Jail?" asked Tails.

"No," said Cream. "She called it rehabibli… rehbabibily… rebhabil…"

"Rehab?" asked the bat, using almost every inch of her will power to keep herself from laughing loudly at Cream's inability to say rehabilitation.

"Yes," replied the rabbit. "Mommy says he was putting something odd in his mouth."

"Well, there are many odd things that you can put in your mouth…" said Tails, his expression showing quite a bit of reluctance to mention it. "You'll find out what they are when you're older."

And at this particular moment, the bat's ears picked up the rather loud sound of Jet moaning from the other side of the walls.

_Oh, dear,_ thought the bat. _They're at it again…_

"So when do you think that these guys will get here?" asked the fox, hoping to change the subject.

"Who knows?" asked Rouge. "It might take them a week. A month. A year. We might even be dead when they come."

"Aw, don't be so down!" said Cream, the innocence in her voice showing through. "Mommy says that no matter what happens, we need to hope for the best! Don't say that! We can get through this! I know we can."

Rouge nodded her head. As much as she would have wanted to prove the innocent little rabbit wrong, she knew that through that innocence came a kind of indiscernible intelligence. In a way, Cream was right; moping about things never really got her anywhere in life, so she realized she could not let either of the children down.

"Okay," said the bat as she rolled the die and moved her thimble a few spaces forwards. "I'll believe in you. Oh, and by the way, here's 150 dollars. I landed on your property."

The rabbit smiled, taking the play money that Rouge handed her.

The game would go on well into the afternoon, and when it finally ended, the three of them had a rather good sleep. And as Rouge shifted her way through the dreams, she realized subconsciously that it was the first good sleep she had had in two weeks.


	16. Chapter 15

And, here I am.

Now, this is the last real chapter of the fic, so expect a bit of new character-introduction to be added here. Also, the next chapter is a bit of a filler chapter to show who goes where and shit, and then epilogue! So you know the rest.

And now I've decided that I'm going to go to the Boston Conservatory as a composition student. So I feel great right now!

You know the rest. Here's the chapter, and enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 15

**Wednesday, July 28**

**11:58 A.M.**

"Hey, Shadow."

"Yes, Jet?"

"Can I ask ya something?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"If we do live together, we're not going to go around fucking like rabbits, are we?"

A good natured laugh.

"No, silly. We won't be doing it that often."

"Oh, okay. Just curious."

Shadow was walking around the apartment after he had managed to brew himself some cold tea with a tea bag that he had found in the cupboard. Jet sat on the bed as he had been doing ever since he woke up.

The two of them had woken up rather late from a rather long session of late-night sex, and in the afterglow Jet had been left wondering if it would always be like this. Not that he minded, but he had to ask since curiosity got the better of him, so he wound up having to ask around twenty minutes after they had woken up.

"I know what you mean," said the hedgehog. "I wouldn't mind myself, actually."

"Yeah," said Jet. "You know, I wonder where my mom and my sister are…"

"They're probably all right," said Shadow as he walked over to the bed and sat next to the hawk. "They're probably somewhere safe right now."

"I hope they are," replied Jet. "And I hope my dad got what he had coming for him…"

"Now isn't that a little harsh?" asked Shadow. "I mean, I wouldn't hate my dad if he did that to me, but I guess I haven't been you."

"I know," said Jet. "But it's too hard to forgive him. I just can't for some reason."

The hedgehog sighed and wrapped an arm around Jet's shoulders.

"Hey," he said. "You know that sometimes forgiving the man makes it easier to forget what happened, right?"

"I can't forget it," replied the hawk. "He was the first person I came out of the closet to…"

"Well, even in the worst of circumstances, you have to forgive somebody," said the hedgehog. "Hate only begets more hate. Maybe the cycle will end when one person forgives the other. Maybe that's what you need to do."

The hawk pondered on what the hedgehog said, and he nodded.

"I guess you're right…" said Jet. "I guess I'll do it if I ever see him again."

"That's the spirit," said Shadow softly, leaving a small kiss on Jet's cheek.

"So now that we're up, I guess we gotta get breakfast, right?" asked Jet.

The hedgehog did not say anything, though. Jet heard the distinct moaning of the horde, too, so the hawk understood the hedgehog's silence.

"We gotta go get Rouge and the kids," said Jet.

Shadow nodded, and the two of them grabbed their weapons and their ammunition bags before running to Rouge's room and knocking on the door.

After a very short interval of time, however, Rouge appeared with the children, the bat holding her semi-automatic and the fox holding his handgun with everybody having an ammunition bag slung over their shoulders.

"So ya heard the horde," said Jet.

"Yes," said Rouge. "So, where do we go?"

"The roof," said Shadow. "We don't have much time to get there, so I say we get going now."

"Good that we got prepared now," said Tails. "Come on, Cream. We need to go to the roof."

The five of them walked as quickly as they could to the staircase, and they quickly ascended the staircase to find themselves on the roof. The sun shone brilliantly overhead, with the clouds almost being nonexistent in the sky.

After looking at their surroundings, the group found themselves on a rather plain rooftop. The square bulging of the staircase from where they had come out of was really quite plain, but one was able to see most of the city from where they were. It was quite spacious, however, and they noticed for the first time just how large the building was.

Shadow walked slowly to a corner, with Jet just noticing where he was going in the blink of an eye.

"Shadow!" said Jet. "What are you doing?"

"Getting into the corner," said Shadow. "Jet, you'll stand with me. Rouge, Tails, go stand on the other corner. Cream, stay with us, and give Rouge and Tails their ammunition bags. When the horde appears, we fire at them from the corners. Got it?"

Rouge nodded wordlessly, and Tails followed. Cream walked over to Rouge and Tails, and she gave them their ammunition bags before walking over to where Jet and Shadow were. The four that had weapons with them prepared their weapons, and aimed at the door that the horde was sure to appear from within a short amount of time.

"Wait for it…" whispered Shadow as he took aim at the door, Jet and Rouge both waiting as the moans of the horde began to rise in a steady crescendo from below.

And after a few seconds, the door burst open, and the first of the horde walked out.

"Fire!" yelled Shadow as loudly as he could.

And the barrage of bullets began as Shadow fired his shotgun.

The horde had begun to die right when the barrage started; after all, it was Shadow, Jet, Tails, and Rouge firing on the same spot, with the bullets raining down constantly on the horde.

However, there were some humps to overcome as far as reloading was concerned; after all, eventually everybody had to reload their rounds. Shadow was the one reloading the most, with Cream busy at work handing him the cartridges. When Rouge and Tails were busy reloading, they also had to get their own ammunition (unlike Jet and Shadow, who both had Cream at their disposal). No matter what the case, though, one thing was clear; when they were reloading, there was a slight delay.

And after around half an hour of this exchange with the horde never seeming to end, the horde began to slowly creep out. And as the horde began to spread out, the hawk realized there was no way they could do it like this.

"Damn it…" said Jet as he continued firing into the horde. "Shadow. I don't think Rouge and Tails are gonna last over there! Get them over here!"

The hedgehog looked over at the bat and the fox, and realized that Jet was right.

"Rouge! Tails!" he shouted. "Get over here! Now!"

Without another word, Rouge and Tails picked up their ammunition bags and ran over to the corner where Shadow and Jet were standing quickly. As soon as they got there, they dropped the bags quickly (one of Tails' bags actually fell off of the side of the building) and opened fire on the horde.

And this happened for another half an hour or so, with the four of them firing at the horde in every direction now since it had quickly begun to occupy most of the roof. And that was when they realized that they were face to face with the brunt of the horde.

Finally, however, Shadow's shotgun made the by then old sound that meant that he had run out of ammunition.

"Cream!" he shouted, knowing that she would instantly get him the ammunition.

However, the hedgehog was not greeted with good news when he opened his hand to receive the cartridge.

"There's nothing left!" shouted the rabbit.

"What?" asked Shadow.

"There are no shotgun rounds left!" shouted Rouge.

The hedgehog stared in disbelief for a moment.

He had been the first to run out of rounds.

Thankfully, it was then that Tails realized that the bag of dropped rounds meant that he could not fire anymore either, so some minor embarrassment on the hedgehog's part was spared.

But he knew that he could not back out of the fight then, so he grabbed his shotgun by the barrel and began whacking any zombies that got close with the butt of the shotgun as Jet and Rouge fired away.

And finally, it was getting to the point where the five of them were crowded against the corner, Shadow frantically swinging his shotgun around in a deranged sort of fashion. Rouge just kept on firing the semi-automatic into the crowd, and Jet was almost out of ammunition. It seemed like there would be no end to the horde, yet it was apparent that the group was not going down without a fight.

And a valiant fight it was; none of the living people had given in yet, even as the horde began to get so massive that bodies were falling off of the edges of the building to become nothing more than a mess of blood on the ground that lay many stories below.

In fact, they were so into the fight that Rouge heard a slight whirr and dismissed it.

However, when it got louder, she realized it was the hum of a helicopter flying around the airspace of the city.

"What in…?" asked Rouge to herself.

And then Tails and Cream gasped behind her, apparently having seen something and looking at the helicopter itself.

And no sooner did she hear this gasp than she felt the rabbit nodding to the fox.

"Hey! Over here! We're over here!"

The children began to chorus this line over and over again, and eventually the hum of the helicopter's blades slicing the air again and again rose over the moaning.

And when Shadow and Jet turned their heads to see what all the noise was about, they realized that a gun was prepared on the helicopter.

After beating a member of the horde violently, Shadow motioned to the group.

"Get down!" yelled the hedgehog as the gunman in the helicopter prepared to fire.

Nobody needed further information; as soon as everybody in the group ducked down, the helicopter gun opened fire on the horde, significantly reducing the size of it so that the survivors were not threatened by it anymore.

And when the gunfire ended, the five survivors promptly stood up as the helicopter hovered at a level that matched the floor of the rooftop.

"Quickly!" shouted a hedgehog with silver fur that stood inside. "Get in!"

Cream and Tails wasted literally no time following the command; given their proximity to the floor of the helicopter, they jumped right on into the vehicle. Shadow, with the uselessness of his weapon, went in next, followed very quickly by Jet. Finally, Rouge entered the helicopter after firing a few rounds into the horde as it began to resurge out from the doorway onto the roof. After Rouge stepped in, the silver-haired hedgehog made a motion to the pilot of the helicopter, and as soon as the motion was made the helicopter was flying as far away from the apartment building as possible, the wind rushing by the figures as the robot that had been manning the gun went to the sliding door of the helicopter and closed it as it flew away.

"My god…" said Jet as the noise finally died down. "We made it…"

"And to think we'd be stuck there forever…" added Shadow.

"Indeed," said the silver-furred hedgehog. "We'll get the reminiscing done later. Agent Rouge."

"Agh! Agent Silver!" shouted Rouge nervously, jumping up upon realizing who the silver hedgehog was. "What do you need?"

"Yes, that was definitely your voice on satellite radio the other day," said Silver. "Needless to say, half the country got pissed at having the World Series interrupted."

"Ya mean that our broadcast… got in the way of a major sports broadcast?" asked Jet.

"Pretty much," said Silver. "But still, we figured something was wrong here since we have been getting absolutely no communication from Station Square whatsoever."

"So that's how you figured it out," said Tails, the survivors just beginning to stand up and sit on one of the benches that was at the edges of the helicopter.

"I would think," said Rouge, looking out the window to see that they were already a mile or two outside of Station Square. "I always did think you were rather sharp, Silver."

"Well, hey," replied Silver. "It's part of the job description. I take it I'll meet the other survivors later?"

"Later?" asked Jet. "Where are ya takin' us?"

The silver-furred hedgehog sighed a little as he looked at the hawk.

"You guys are going to be in a military base for a few days," said Silver. "In that time, we'll see if there are any contacts of yours in Jarshington, D.C. We'll figure out what to do from there."

"So we're not in…?" asked Jet.

"No," stated Silver. "Why?"

"Well, to say the least—" said Shadow.

"I've been robbing the streets for the past two years now," stated Jet rather bluntly.

Silver nodded slowly, golden eyes closing for a moment before acknowledging the hawk's emerald eyes.

"I doubt the government will do anything about that," said the hedgehog. "You guys have been through enough."

The hawk nodded, understanding what that meant for his future.

"Well, at least with that you won't have to worry about anything else, right?" asked Shadow, slinging an arm over Jet's shoulder.

"Yep," replied the hawk happily.

"Contacts?" asked Cream. "What are those?"

"Oh, Cream, don't you know?" asked Tails. "Those are people you know in Jarshington D.C.!"

The rabbit's expression perked up a little more from the relief that she had been in.

"So I'm going to see mommy really soon?" asked Cream.

"I'm pretty sure you will," said Silver.

"Yay!" shouted Cream as she jumped up and down in the helicopter. "I'll get to see mommy again! I'll get to—!"

She never finished the sentence, however, for at that instance an incredibly loud boom sounded from the direction that they were flying away in. All eyes were directed at the window, and they saw a gigantic mushroom cloud rising from where Station Square once stood.

There was an awkward silence as everybody looked at the mushroom cloud, Cream shivering nervously where she stood as Jet looked on in confusion at the mushroom cloud. Everybody else was giving the cloud a long, hard stare.

Finally, Rouge spoke.

"You were ordered to do the I-17, weren't you?" asked Rouge.

"Indeed," said Silver. "Don't ask me how it happened; we had an odd case of somebody coming back from the dead in Jarshington, D.C."

All heads instantly turned to the silver hedgehog, surprise showing on all of their faces.

"Are you serious?" they all asked at precisely the same moment.

"Very," said Silver. "Some old porcupine came back from the dead and scared the shit out of a few neighbors. When one of them finally killed it for good with a shotgun, we took it back to the lab and found a very odd virus lodged in its brain. And since we heard of undead creatures in your broadcast, we figured we might nuke the place; not only is it unsafe, but hopefully that virus will have mutated so that it can't affect anybody."

"The cure for death…" stated an amazed Rouge under her breath.

"What?" asked Silver, his head leaning to the side in an inquisitory manner.

"It'll be revealed in time," said the bat. "I don't want to get into it now."

"Okay," said Silver. "But rest assured, you will have to tell once we get to the base. That's not for another two hours, though."

"Two hours?" asked Jet loudly. "What are we supposed ta do in that time?"

"Talk, I guess," said Shadow.

"That's true," said Tails. "So, I take it you want to know what happened to us?"

"Yes, actually," said Silver. "I'd like to know what happened over there.

"Well, if I have to go into details on what was happening, I guess I must," said the bat.

And the group of survivors began telling their tales of what had happened in Station Square, the silver-furred hedgehog nodding as he took in each and every detail of their story.


	17. Chapter 16

And hello, everybody. I'm here, with the last chapter of this fic.

Now, I'm going to try to get the epilogue done ASAP. I mean, now that this is out of the way, I can concentrate on continuing Paranoia and my new SSB related adventure fic. I can also start coming up with more ideas for one of my other fics, so look forward to that. You all know the rest, I trust.

So a few revelations occur here in relation to Jet. Don't ask. Just read.

And you all know the rest. With this, I give you the final chapter. And after this, epilogue! Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 16

**Friday, July 30**

**9:36 A.M.**

"So, did everybody have a good breakfast?"

Heads nodded everywhere.

"Good. You're to be at the ready at all times; we've managed to establish a bunch of contacts from your information, so you will be seeing some people you know soon. All right?"

"Okay, man."

"Good. The base is all yours to explore, by the way. Nobody will object to any of you walking around."

Silver nodded at them, and he sat down on a chair that he had brought in for his own use.

Shadow could not help but think of how annoyingly plain the room was; the walls were white, the sheets were white, everything in the room was white. But he did not mind much after everything that he had been through; the beds were comfortable, the food was better than the junk food he had been forced to live off of for a while. So really, he had no reason to complain.

The group of survivors was placed in a military base for what they figured would be a while of waiting. It was the only place anybody was willing to put them in, but in the end, everybody figured it was for the best. Rouge had had quite a time the day before flirting with some soldiers, and Cream and Tails both ran into plenty of soldiers that were really quite friendly to them. Jet and Shadow had no reason to complain, either, since they did not quite get the stares they figured they would for being gay. Of course, the fact that they had not quite come out of the closet did help matters a little, but they were content with people being friendly to them.

The instant they got there, however, they had taken quite a bit of time to run a background test on them so that they could figure out if there was anybody they knew in Jarshington D.C. It was a long test, it was very annoying, and at the end of it everybody felt like complaining to somebody. But they knew it had to be done, so they didn't say anything more about the subject.

And there they were on the morning after they had gotten there, with Silver among them.

"So, we wait here?" asked Jet from the top of the left bunk, where he happened to be laying down with Shadow.

"Essentially, yes," said Silver. "We'll contact everybody that your results matched with, and when they come for you we'll gather all of you in here so that we can keep the contact going. You know what I mean?"

"Yes," said Rouge from her position on the top of the right bunk. "But still, everybody will wonder what happened to us."

"Well, there are the biographers for that, you know," said Shadow. "But I see your point…"

"That's true," said Silver, nodding slightly. "But for now, this stays soley as classified information. We'll release our findings soon enough, though, because we know that those people need to know what was going on there."

"And also why Station Square disappeared from the surface of the earth, right?" asked Tails, who was sitting next to Cream on the bottom of the right bunk.

"Yes," said Silver. "After that, we'll see what we can do with getting your side of the story out there for the world to read."

Everybody nodded in the room.

"Oh, and Shadow? Jet?" asked Silver. "Try not to get it on here. I'm pretty sure the military has as anti-gay a policy as they can have right now, and for the life of me I would hate to see you both getting the crap beaten out of you for something that's in your blood."

"Hey, we were bored and we had nothing else to do," said Jet plainly. "It won't happen here, we promise."

"Actually, I wanted to ask a question," said the black hedgehog. "There was supposed to be a cure for HIV/AIDS that was developed by the guy that started the whole mess, and—"

"Oh, that piece of crap?" asked Silver. "We took it off the market last week while you were still in Station Square."

"What?" asked Jet. "Why?"

"Put simply, some odd side effects were happening to people," replied the silver hedgehog. "Basically put, it was killing everybody off faster than it was saving people's lives. I think this Eggman guy was a nut."

"He was definitely a nut," said the bat in reply. "I mean, I've seen it for myself."

"That is true," said Silver. "I should probably be going now. I'll see you guys later, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask me anything."

"Sure thing!" said Cream. "Thank you for caring so much!"

"It's my pleasure," stated the silver furred hedgehog, smiling at everybody as he left the room.

* * *

**4:53 P.M.**

Shadow was the last person to be shuffled into the room.

Everybody had been called back into the room for a short session; apparently, the contacts had been contacted, and they were on their way.

As the black hedgehog shuffled into the room everybody sat on the bottom of the left bunk, and they all looked at Silver, who would be moderating from the other side of the room on the bottom of the right bunk.

"So who's coming?" asked Jet.

"The contacts asked to be anonymous until they get there," said Silver. "The one person we talked to said that she knew some people that were related to some of you guys here, and that she would get them together so they could come together. Actually, it works out for us, because it takes care of getting three of the five out."

"Or four, depending on Jet's contact's willingness to take me in," mentioned Shadow.

"That's true," said Rouge. "But then who am I going to be with?"

"You are going to move into the White House after everybody leaves," said the silver-haired hedgehog. "I was hoping to keep this until later, but you've been promoted to an operations manager."

Rouge was speechless.

"A… Are you serious?" asked the bat.

"Of course I am," said Silver. "The intelligence agency knows that you've taken on the most dangerous assignment that anybody could possibly undertake, and for that they figured you would be able to help manage how the operations are run. You've been through a lot, you know, and you managed to save the lives of four others as well."

"Well, frankly, that's being a little too kind there…" admitted Rouge embarrassedly. "I mean, they did do most of their own firing of things, and…"

"And you forget that it was ultimately your voice on the radio that got our attention onto Station Square," said Silver. "You forget that you're the one who got everybody together through the AM stations. Therefore, you get the most credit for uniting the remaining survivors."

"Well, that's awfully kind of you, but really, you're being too generous!" said the bat.

"She has a point," said Shadow. "I mean, without Tails' expertise on technology, we wouldn't be standing here right now. And without Jet's knowledge of the back streets, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere fast. And without me, Jet would not have survived to tell us how the back streets were laid out. So in one way or another, we all deserve credit."

"Not me," said Cream simply. "I just stood there and held things…"

"Hey, if it helped the overall effort, that's better than nothing," replied Silver. "Anyways, the fact remains that the government feels Rouge gets the most credit. Maybe we can prove that wrong later when you tell your story to the writers. But Rouge will get the promotion."

"Well, if I must, I must," said the bat. "I never thought I would get there!"

"Well, things happen," said Jet. "So we gotta take it all lightly. Ya know?"

"True," said Rouge. "Tell the president that I am ready for my duty!"

"All right," said the silver-furred hedgehog.

There was a knock at the door, and all eyes instantly went to the door.

"Oh," said Silver, standing up. "They're here!"

The hedgehog walked up to the door and opened it.

The first one to enter the room was a somewhat tall female rabbit, and upon entering she eyed the room. Almost instantly, Cream recognized who she was, and she jumped from her position on the bunk bed.

"Mommy!" shouted Cream, running towards Vanilla.

"Cream!" exclaimed the elder rabbit as her daughter leapt into the folds of her skirt. "You're all right!"

"Mommy!" said Cream. "I knew I'd get to see you again!"

"Oh, darling," said the elder rabbit. "I was so worried. But what about Mighty? What happened to him?"

"Oh, the armadillo?" asked Jet, standing up. "You don't wanna know, ma'am."

Vanilla looked at the hawk as Shadow groaned and stood next to his lover.

"But somehow, she came into our care," said the hedgehog. "So we got her out of there."

"Did you?" asked Vanilla.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Jet. "But we met up with Rouge shortly afterwards, so we all sort of helped in a way."

"Oh, thank you all for keeping my daughter safe!" said Vanilla.

"Hey, nothing to it," said Rouge, standing up as she said this. "It's all part of correct human nature."

"Indeed," said Shadow. "By the way, I'm Shadow, the hawk is Jet, the bat is Rouge, and the fox is—"

"Tails?" continued Vanilla. "His uncle's here."

"You mean uncle Maxwell?" asked Tails, suddenly springing up from his position on the bunk bed. "Oh, you mean it?"

"She means it, boy," said an elderly fox with one tail as he walked in. His somewhat brown fur did not exactly shine in the lighting of the room, but his blue eyes glittered just as brilliantly. "Missed me?"

"Uncle Maxwell!" shouted Tails, jumping up in excitement and literally landing onto the older fox's figure as he jumped around.

"Miles, old sport!" exclaimed Maxwell happily. "You're all right!"

"You bet I am!" said Tails. "You have no idea how bad it was down there!"

"And I don't pretend to know, either," stated Maxwell. "But what matters now is that you're here, alive and well."

"That's true," said Shadow. "We're alive, and we'll be fine. It's simple as that."

"Yeah," said Jet. "But what if you don't have anybody to go home to?"

The hawk plopped onto the bunk bed. Rouge shook her head and sat next to the young hawk.

"Aw, Jet, don't say that," said Rouge. "We're never alone in this world. Hey, you have Shadow and all of the rest of us right now. Who else do you want?"

"Family, that's what!" said Jet. "Here I am in my hometown, from where I ran away several years ago! And now my mom's probably dead, my dad's probably in jail, and my sisters are all over the place! Who else can I find now?"

"Well, Jet, that's not entirely true," said Vanilla, taking a seat on the unoccupied side of the bed that Jet was sitting on. "You can't really say that."

"And why are you telling me this?" asked Jet.

It was then that a third person walked into the room. It was a somewhat elderly lady, jade feathers dimmed a little with emerald eyes that shone with a great degree of sadness. She looked at the younger hawk, her eyes gleaming in hope.

"Who…" began Jet. "Who are you?"

"You don't remember?" asked the elder hawk.

After hearing her voice, the realization hit Jet with a thousand tons of concrete.

"Mom?" he asked.

"Jet, you're alive…" said the elder hawk.

"Mom!" shouted Jet, jumping off the bed and hugging his mother as hard as he could, tears of joy beginning to run down the sides of his cheeks. The woman clutched her child to her, the tears coming down her cheeks as well.

At this scene, nobody really said anything. The implications were just too powerful for anybody to figure out how to react to it; after such a long time, a mother and her son were finally reunited under the most coincidental of circumstances. Everybody gave the two of them a little bit of time alone. And for a while, nothing was said.

"I thought you were dead…" began Jet's mother, finally breaking the silence.

"I thought dad had killed ya," said Jet. "Mom, I've got something I need to tell you, and I need—"

"There's no need," interrupted the elder hawk. "I already know, and I'm going to tell you this: no matter what happens, you're still my child, and I'll always love you."

The younger hawk was left speechless at his mother's words.

"Mom…" he simply stated, tightening his already very tight hug.

The tears of joy intensified.

And after another long period of time of them standing in such a fashion, the two of them finally had no tears to shed. Thus, they parted, looking at one another in sheer joy.

"So," began Jet, looking at the floor. "What happened to dad?"

"You ran away, and then I confronted him about it," began the hawk. "He tried to kill me!"

"But you managed to subdue him and get him…?" continued Jet.

"The police came as soon as I called," said the elder hawk. "And they got him just in time."

"Yeah," said the younger hawk. "And while you were doing that, I had gotten on the train to Station Square. And then I wound up in all this messed up stuff. Weird what life does to you, right?"

"What exactly did happen?" asked the elder hawk.

"It's a very long story," replied Shadow, walking so that he stood next to Jet, crimson eyes peering into the lime-colored orbs of his boyfriend's mother. "We can tell you about it later."

"And who might you be?" asked Jet's mother.

"Oh," said Jet simply. "Mom, this is Shadow. We ran into each other during this whole mess, and then we eventually…"

The hawk trailed off with his hands, and his mother instantly understood what was happening.

"I see." She nodded curtly, then turned to Shadow, her gaze soft and caring. "If you want, you can stay with us, get a job somewhere as a clerk or something."

"Oh, are you kidding?" asked Shadow. "I have a degree in chemical engineering! I can help you out a little more than that!"

"Well, then it's settled," said Jet's mother. "We'll get you accommodated right away, we will."

"Wonderful!" said Rouge, clapping her hands and standing up. "My only question is this; how did you find out about all this?"

"Well, I actually met her at a little social for mothers whose children were either far away from them or dead," said Vanilla, standing up as well. "When my dear husband got himself into rehab, I sent Cream down to a friend of mine to keep her safe, and then she was standing around waiting for a meeting when I had gotten back to my house. I tagged along, and we've pretty much been good friends since then."

"And plus, the contact results matched," added Silver, who suddenly reentered the scene after being absent for such a long time. "Good thing we can take him off the missing persons list now…"

"So we finally meet again," said Jet.

"Yes," said his mother. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Shadow."

"Same here, madam," said the black hedgehog, nodding as he said it.

"Okay," began Maxwell after a brief pause in the talking. "Are we all ready to leave?"

"Pretty much," said Rouge. "Silver, do I stay behind?"

"The escort is already at the gate of the base," said the silver-haired hedgehog. "Don't worry. I'll join you there shortly."

"Then what are we waiting for?" asked Tails. "Let's get out of here!"

"Yes!" said Cream. "Let's go home!"

Everybody nodded in agreement, and everybody filed out of the room save Silver and a lone soldier.

"You know, sir, I wonder," began the lone soldier after everybody left. "A minute ago, we didn't know what was going on here. And now we hear of a zombie infestation. How do you think they'll take that bit of info?"

"Right now, they don't care about the details of the story," said Silver. "You know why? Because they have their loved ones back, and that's all that matters to them."

"You didn't coach that lady to say anything, did you, sir?" asked the soldier.

"Oh, heavens no," said the hedgehog. "You should have heard her reaction over the phone when she found out her son was alive. Man, that was a reaction for the ages."

"You should probably get going, sir," mentioned the soldier. "You have a small amount of paperwork to do."

"That I already finished, actually," added the hedgehog. "I just needed to think. I'll see you later, then. Bye."

"Goodbye, sir," stated the soldier as the hedgehog walked out of the room with an air of stateliness surrounding his figure.


	18. Epilogue

And here I am, everybody, with the epilogue! It's finally over!

And now, I can get on to other stuff that's been nagging at me. Basically, expect four books of a long-as-hell adventure story. It definitely won't be in this section, though, so this will probably be the only Sonic the Hedgehog fic I ever post on this site. Sorry, all. :(

But hey, let's get to the epilogue, now, shall we? Enjoy!

* * *

Epilogue

**Two years later…**

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

"Jet! Shadow! I'm home!"

Almost immediately, Shadow looked up from his spot on the couch where he had been sitting next to Jet. They had been conveniently watching another trashy romance film, and the good part had just come.

Heaving a sigh of annoyance, Jet paused the movie with a flick of his thumb as his lover went over to the door and opened the door. In walked Jet's mother, trying to hold on to some grocery bags in between her arms and almost dropping one as she squeezed her way through the door. Shadow barely managed to catch her before she came plummeting to the floor, however, so he looked at her.

"Oh, let me take one of these for you," said Shadow, grabbing the two heaviest bags and walking in with them.

"Oh, thank you Shadow," said the older hawk, Jet jumping off the couch and closing the door behind her. "You know, life has been easier with you two in my life."

"I can imagine," added the younger hawk. "So you decided to get extra stuff, mom?"

"The biographer comes tomorrow at noon, remember?" asked the older hawk. "I should try to be as hospitable to him as I can, right?"

"That's true," said Jet. "So what's on the menu for lunch with the biographer?"

"Lasagna," replied Jet's mother. "It's really the best we can do, what with the price of seafood what it is."

"Seriously," said Shadow. "You'd think that people would stop overfishing the damn oceans due to how pricey those things are these days."

"But that's intelligence that people lack," said Jet. "Trust me; I've seen plenty of signs of hypocrisy from random people of class when I lived on those streets."

"It's sad what the world is coming to," said Jet's mother. "Jet, have you done your Pre-Calculus homework?"

"Just turned that in to the online instructor," replied the hawk. "Man, I'm glad that course is almost over. Good thing I'm catching up, or else I'd be screwed right now."

"And thank goodness for internet schooling," said Shadow. "It's inefficient, but it saves us quite a bit of humiliation."

"Naw, they understand," said Jet. "I've been running into old schoolmates of mine all over the place, and they know what happened with me. I'm telling them to look out for the biography."

"Yeah," said Jet's mother. "I do feel bad for Vanilla's friend, though…"

"Mighty?" asked the black hedgehog. "Yeah. I can understand."

"I wish I would have met him in person," said Jet. "That would have been very interesting, to say the least. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," replied Jet's mother.

"Should I go turn the TV off, or…?" asked Jet.

"We probably won't be using it for a while," said Shadow.

"Gotcha," said the hawk, running over to the TV and switching it off with a press of a button.

The three of them then proceeded to unload the contents of the grocery bags, talking feverishly about random topics as they emptied the bags.

* * *

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Rouge tapped the pen nervously on the desk, her mind concentrated on the unfinished mission report that lay on her desk.

This was a very important mission; she truly needed to word it correctly. But exactly how to word it without sounding offensive was evading her mind right then. That was one reason why she hated filling out mission reports that had any racial overtones about the mission; they were the hardest to write since somebody was going to be offended by the wording one way or another. The stress was killing her, too, since she needed to turn in the mission report before the end of the day.

The only thing she had to be thankful for was that the biographer had met her the day before, so that was additional stress that she had gotten rid of right there. The biographer was a really nice man, and he had taken down notes judiciously. The only problem she had with him was that he poked around too many sensitive corners, but Rouge understood he was trying to get as accurate a biography as he possibly could. So she let him poke and prod his way around.

But still, the mission report was amounting to so much stress that Rouge was on the verge of tearing her fur off of her body.

"Hey, Rouge. Are you okay there?"

The bat sighed. Silver always dropped by her desk at the most inconvenient of moments.

"Another racially-based mission," stated Rouge. "This one did not end well at all."

"Agents were incompetent with the intelligence?" asked the hedgehog, silver fur gleaming brilliantly in the LED lighting.

"No," said Rouge. "The intelligence was wrong from the beginning. Apparently, one of the agents was a racist, so he geared all of the intelligence incorrectly."

"Oh, dear," gasped Silver. "I'll bet the agency is going to have fun with that one."

"Knowing them, they'll go crazy," stated the bat plaintively. "The next problem is that I'm not sure how to word it; apparently, the agent is a dragon…"

"Ooh…" said Silver. "That's even worse. I can only imagine what the head of the department is going to say…"

"So I'm stuck on wording," said Rouge.

"Hey, just go with what you think is best," said the hedgehog, patting Rouge encouragingly on the shoulder. "You've managed to do it throughout the two years that you've been in this position; you can do it for this rather odd case."

"You really think so?" asked the bat.

"Yes," said Silver. "Hey, you've been very good at your job. You can do it."

"Thanks," said Rouge.

"By the way, have you managed to solve the whole 'I'm single' problem?" asked Silver as he walked towards the door.

"No…" said the bat. "Nobody's interested these days…"

"Pity," replied the hedgehog. "You are a rather cool woman."

"Thanks," said Rouge, thankful for the complement.

"Don't mention it," replied Silver, winking at her and then leaving the office.

With renewed vigor and a sudden inspiration on how to write her letter, she set the pen to the paper and scribbled furiously.

* * *

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Tails watched as the syrupy stuff refused to get off of the wooden spoon that he was holding. Even hitting it against the bowl where the lettuce was resting was not enough to get it off.

"Euch. The dressing is still on the baking spoon," he said.

"Don't worry about it. It'll fall off eventually."

Cream ran over to the oven, her mitts still on as she checked the state of the various other things that were already in there.

"Everything else is pretty much ready by now," said the young rabbit. "Mom! I think you can take the rest of the food out of the oven now!"

"Coming, dear," said Vanilla, running into the kitchen and opening the oven door so that she could take everything out. Cream helped take out some of the lighter things, while her mother was busy taking out some heavier things.

"So the biographer is coming in four minutes?" asked Tails.

"Pretty much," said Vanilla. "Why?"

"The salad isn't exactly ready yet," said Tails.

"Oh, that's fine," said the older rabbit, noticing that the fox was holding the spoon in his hand. "Not all of the dressing has to be in the actual salad. We can get it ready along with everything else."

"Okay!" exclaimed Tails happily. "So everybody else is coming, right?"

"It's a huge dinner, yes," said Cream. "But Rouge, Jet, and Shadow aren't coming. Rouge already met with the biographer."

"And Jet and Shadow meet with the biographer tomorrow," said Tails. "I know that."

"Okay," said Cream. "But I'm jealous of him. I wish Mighty was here…"

"I do too," said Vanilla. "I miss him very much, and I think he could have done a very good biography by now."

"Yeah," said Tails. "But you never know what could have happened."

"That's true," said the younger rabbit as everybody grabbed one of the dishes and paraded to the dinner table with all of the food in tow. "It might not have sold as well. I mean, I know the author rather well. I have the feeling it will sell very well."

"I also get the feeling our story will turn into a Gallywood feature film," said Tails. "You know how crazy things can get, right?"

"It'll probably be a blockbuster, that's for sure," said Vanilla, setting some food down on the table. "You know how people went nuts over the fact that Station Square disappeared off the face of the earth because of somebody trying to create a cure for death."

"That's true," said Tails, also setting food on the table. "But still, I hope it's not badly made…"

"Well, it probably won't," said Cream as she set some more food on the table. "And plus, we don't know if the producers are interested yet."

"Indeed," said the older rabbit.

Immediately afterwards, the doorbell rang resoundingly in the dining room.

"Oh, boy!" said Cream. "He's here!"

"All right," said Vanilla. "Now remember what I told you; be nice to him, show him all of your respect, and answer every question he asks you. All right?"

"All right!" the two children said.

Vanilla nodded, and then she went to the door and opened it.

* * *

The biography that was later compiled did indeed become a success. A film version was never attempted, however.

But one thing was clear; it struck a chord with the many readers who were lucky enough to pick up a copy of the book. For one thing was clear to them after they read the book thoroughly; they could not cheat death without expecting severe consequences from the powers above.

Death is inevitable. That much is true.

But it took a deranged scientist who owned a corporation and the lives of countless innocents for it to finally click with everybody. The age of trying to find a way to reverse the process had ended.

And after it clicked, death would remain inevitable. And it would remain a one-sided door into the unknown for a long time afterwards.

* * *

**Fin.**

* * *

A/N: Well, that's all, folks!

Since I didn't have that many readers, I guess I'll just say thank you to everybody that cared enough about this fic to review it. Your encouragement was greatly valued!

Anyhoos, you know the rest. If you liked this fic, be sure to check out my other fics as well. I look forward to your reactions to those.

So you know the rest. Bye, all!

-Herr Wozzeck.


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